ITNEVERCAN 
HAPPEN  AGAIN 


LIBRARY 

of 

'RV/NE 


,'.- 


BY  WILLIAM   DE   MORGAN 


JOSEPH  VANCE 

An  intensely  human  and  humorous  novel 
of  life  near  London  in  the  '50s.  $1.75. 

"  If  the  reader  likes  both  •  David  Copperfleld ' 
and  '  Peter  Ibbetson  '  he  can  find  the  two  books 
in  this  one." — The  Independent. 

"  The  first  great  English  novel  that  has  ap- 
peared in  the  20th  Century." — New  York  Times 
Review. 

ALICE-FOR-SHORT 

The  story  of  a  London  waif,  a  friendly 
artist,  his  friends  and  family.  $1.75. 

"  If  any  writer  of  the  present  era  is  read  half 
a  century  hence,  a  quarter  century,  or  even  a 
decade,  that  writer  is  William  De  Morgan." — 
Boston  Transcript. 

"  It  is  the  Victorian  age  itself  that  speaks  in 
these  rich,  interesting,  overcrowded  books.  .  .  . 
Will  be  remembered  as  Dickens's  novels  are  re- 
membered."— Springfield  Republican. 

SOMEHOW  GOOD 

A  lovable,  humorous  romance  of  modern 
England.  $1.75. 

"  A  higher  quality  of  enjoyment  than  is  deriv- 
able from  the  work  of  any  other  novelist  now 
living  and  active  in  either  England  or  America. 
Absolutely  masterly." — Dial. 

"  A  book  as  sound,  as  sweet,  as  wholesome,  as 
wise,  as  any  in  the  range  of  fiction." — Nation. 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW  YORK 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN 
AGAIN 


WILLIAM    DE    MORGAN 

AUTHOE  OF   "  JOSEPH  VANCE,"  "  ALICE-FOR-SHORT  " 
AND  "  SOMEHOW  GOOD  " 


NEW   YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 
1909 


6007 


COPTRIQHT,   1909. 
BY 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


Published  November,  1909 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 
OF    LIZABANN    COUPLAND,    HEB    FATHER    AND    HEB    FAMILY.      OF    HIS 

PBEVIOUS  STOBT,  AND  LIZABANN'S  BIBTH 1 


CHAPTER  II 

OF  JIM'S  MATCH-SELLING,  AND  HOW  HE  CAME  TO  TAKE  TO  IT.    HOW 

HE  WALKED  HOME  WITH  OZABANN 11 


CHAPTER  III 

OF   BOYD  HALL,   AND   ITS   LITEBABY   GUEST  WHO   HAD   AN   IMPOSSIBLE 

WIFE  24 


CHAPTER    IV 

OF  MISS  ABKBOYD  AND  HEB  AVIABY.  HOW  MB.  CHALLIS  WALKED  IN 
THE  GABDEN  WITH  HEB.  OF  MB.  TBIPTOLEMUS  WBAXALL.  AND 
OF  HOW  MB.  CHALLIS  WBOTE  TO  HIS  WIFE 37 


CHAPTER    V 

OF  A  BAINY  DAY  AT  BOYD.  HOW  A  MOTOB-CAB  CAME  TO  GBIEF.  HOW 
MISS  ABKBOYD'S  MOTHEB  WENT  TO  THANES  CASTLE  AND  SHE  HEB- 
SELF  DIDN'T  ....  46 


CHAPTER    VI 

OF  THE  GBAUBOSCHIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  HOW  JUDITH  ABKBOYD  WALKED 
WITH  MB.  CHALLIS  TO  THE  BECTOBY.  HOW  HE  SAID  NOTHING 
ABOUT  HIS  WIFE  BEING  HIS  DECEASED  WIFE'S  SISTEB.  HOW  HE 
WAS  OUT  OF  HIS  ELEMENT  AT  THE  BECTOBY.  8ALADIN  AND  HIS 
CAT.  HIS  HEDGEHOG  57 


-vi  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  VII 

PAGE 

•  OF  OTHER  GUESTS  AND  THEIB  TALK.  OF  A  SOFA-HAVEN  AND  HOW  MISS 
ABKBOYD  PEBCEIVED  THAT  MB.  CHALLIS  COULD  WBITE  A  TBAGEDY. 
BEAUTY  A  MATTEB  OF  OPINION 76 

CHAPTER  VIII 

OF  HOW  NO  ACCIDENT  HAD  BEALLY  HAPPENED  TO  THE  MOTOB-CAB. 
OF  A  COMBAT  BETWEEN  TWO  SISTEBS,  CHIEFLY  ABOUT  THOSE 
OF  PEOPLE'S  DECEASED  WIVES.  OF  FLIBTATIONS  WITH  MABBIED 
MEN.  HOW  CHALLIS  WBOTE  A.  LONG  AMUSING  LETTEB  TO 
MARIANNE 89 

CHAPTER  IX 

HOW  MABIANNE  SHOWED  THAT  LETTEB  TO  AN  INTIMATE  FBIEND, 
MBS.  ELDBIDGE.  WHERE  WAS  THAT  SOFA?  OF  COUNTBY  AND 
TOWN  HOUSES.  JEALOUSY 101 

CHAPTER  X 

CHALLIS'S    adieu    TO    MISS    ABKBOYD.       A    LONG    BIDE    HOME,    AND    A 

COLD  WELCOME.    BUT  IT  WAS  JOLLY  TO  BE  BACK,  AT  ANY  BATE. 
MISS  ARKBOYD'S  MESSAGE  DELIVERED  .  .       .     120 


CHAPTER  XI 

VATTED  RUM  CORNER,  AND  CHESTNUTS.  A  YOUKG  TURK.  HOW 
LIZABANN  TOLD  MOTHER  GROVES  OF  THE  FLYING  DUTCHMAN. 
OF  AN  AMBULANCE,  AND  WHAT  WAS  IN  IT.  HOW  LIZABANN 
WENT  HOME  WITHOUT  DADDY  135 


CHAPTER  XII 

HOW  UNCLE  BOB  HAD  THE  HOBROBS.  HOW  LIZABANN  ATE  COLD 
CHESTNUTS  IN  BED.  DELIRIUM  TREMENS.  HOW  JIM  COULD 
SEE  AT  NIGHT,  AND  WAS  UNDEB  THE  BED.  POLICE!  .  .  .  148 


CHAPTER  XIII 

HOW  THE  RECTOR  OF  BOYD  TOOK  A  WRONG  TURNING,  AND  PICKED 
UP  LIZARANN  IN  THE  SNOW.  MR.  STEPTOE'S  KNIFE,  AND  HOW 
LIZABANN  MADE  HIM  LEAVE  HOLD  OF  IT.  HOW  AUNT  STINGY 
WAS  HANDY  IN  CASE  OF  ANYTHING,  AND  UNCLE  BOB  WENT  TO 
SLEEP  ON  A  SECOND-HAND  SOFA 163 


CONTENTS  vii 

CHAPTER  XIV 

PAGE 

OF  THE  END  OF  THE  BLIZZABD,  AND  OF  SIMON  MAGUS.  HOW  MR. 
TAYLOR  FOUND  A  DOCTOR.  OF  A  CHASE  THROUGH  THE  SNOW,  AND 
A  CANAL  LOCK.  WHAT  WAS  FOUND  IN  IT.  BUT  SIMON  WAS 
INVISIBLE 175 

CHAPTER  XV 

HOW  LIZARANN  WAS  TAKEN  TO  MISS  FOSSETT's,  BUT  HAD  A  STITCH 
IN  HER  SIDE,  AND  WASN'T  TO  GO  TO  DADDY  TO-DAY.  HOW  THE 
RECTOR  WENT  TO  JIM  IN  THE  HOSPITAL,  AND  JIM  WAS  DIS- 
APPOINTED ABOUT  HIM 187 

CHAPTER  XVI 

BREAKFAST  IN  GROSVENOR  SQUARE.  STRAINED  RELATIONS  OF  TWO 
SISTERS.  A  BATTLE  INTERRUPTED.  SAMARIA  A  GOOD-NATURED 
PLACE.  WHO  WAS  TO  PAY? 202 

CHAPTER  XVII 

LADY  ARKROYD'S  VISIT  TO  JIM.  GOODY  TALK.  JIM  AND  HIS  MAKER. 
HOW  MB.  TAYLOR  VISITED  ANOTHER  CASE.  A  DEATH-BED  CON- 
FESSION   213 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

THAT  NASTY  LITTLE  STETHOSCOPE!  A  RETROSPECT  ABOUT  THE 
RECTOR  AND  MISS  FOSSETT.  A  TRANSACTION  IN  KISSES.  AUNT 
STINGY'S  WEEDS,  AND  WHAT  A  GOOD  COOK  SHE  WAS  .  .  .  225 

CHAPTER  XIX 

HOW  AUNT  STINGY  BECAME  MARIANNE'S  COOK.  A  MOST  OFFENSIVE 
BIBLE  CLASS.  MR.  CHALLIS's  JUDITH.  ESTRILD  AND  THE 
OSTROGOTHS.  THE  ACROPOLIS  CLUB 236 

CHAPTER  XX 

MRS.  ELDRIDGE  IN  FULL  BLOW.  THE  IMPROPER  STUDY  OF  MANKIND. 
NOTHING  REALLY  WRONG!  AN  IDENTIFICATION  WITH  A  VENGE- 
ANCE. HOW  CHALLIS  CAME  HOME  LATE 248 

CHAPTER  XXI 

HOW  JIM  RETURNED  HOME,  ALL  BUT  ONE  LEG,  AND  LIZARANN  CALLED 
ON  HIM.  HAD  THE  DEVIL  GOT  UNCLE  BOB?  HOW  BRIDGETTICKS 
HAD  HEARD  OF  A  SCHEME  FOB  LIZARANN'S  BENEFIT  .  263- 


viii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    XXII 

THE  EXACT  8TOBT  OF  CHALLIS'S  FIRST  WIFE'S  FIBST  MABRIAOE. 
HOW  HE  AND  MARIANNE  MISSED  THEIR  EXPLANATION.  CHAR- 
LOTTE THE  DETECTIVE.  CHALLIs'S  SECOND  COURTSHIP,  IN  A 
NUTSHELL 276 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

HOW  CHAXLIS  CALLED  ON  MISS  ABKROYD  IN  QRO8VENOB  SQUARE. 
A  SPRAINED  ANKLE.  ON  THE  EDGE  OF  A  PRECIPICE.  KINO 
SOLOMON  AND  HIS  DJINN  BOTTLE  .  284 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

HOW  MARIANNE  WENT  TO  TULSE  HILL.  OF  BOB'S  PHONOGRAPH, 
AND  HOW  HE  POSTED  A  LETTER  TO  JUDITH.  OF  MARIANNE'S 
RETURN,  AND  MORE  MISUNDERSTANDINGS.  BUT  IT  WOULD  BE 
ALL  BIGHT  IN  THE  MOBNING 297 


CHAPTER  XXV 

OF  AN  UNCALLED  FAMILY  BOW,  AND  HOW  BOB'S  BREAKFAST  WAS 
POSTPONED.  OF  A  LETTEB  FROM  JUDITH  THAT  MADE  MATTERS 
WORSE  315 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

AT  ROYD  AGAIN.  THE  BREAD  OF  IDLENESS.  A  GOOD  PLAIN  COOK. 
A  DIALOGUE  BETWEEN  A  PRIEST  AND  A  PROFANE  AUTHOR.  THE 
RECTORY  AND  ITS  GUEST,  LIZABANN.  HOW  THE  CARRIAGE  DIDN'T 
STOP  323 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

HOW  JUDITH'S  STAGE  MANIA  HAD  COOLED.  TBOUT  BEND,  AND  A 
TICKLISH  INTERVIEW.  HALF-A-MILE  OFF  TEA.  A  DISCUSSION 
ON  RELIGIOUS  EDUCATION 337 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

THE  BRITISH  HOUSEKEEPER.  HOW  MRS.  ELDRIDGE  CAME  INSTEAD 
OF  TO-MORROW.  HER  ADVICE.  TELEGRAPH  GIRLS.  A  FRENCH 
WOMAN'S  IDEAS.  HOW  THE  CAT  GOT  NO  SLEEP.  HOW  MARI- 
ANNE POSTED  A  CIVIL  SORT  OF  LETTEB  IN  THE  PILLAR-BOX,  AND 
WAS  SORRY  .  353 


CONTENTS  ix 

CHAPTER  XXIX 

PACK 

HOW  CHALLTS  MET  LIZABANN  IN  SOCIETY.  OF  A  LECTUBE  THE 
BECTOB  BEAD  CHALLIS,  AND  ITS  EFFECT  ON  HIS  IMAGE  OF 
MABIANNE.  HOW  HE  HADN'T  BEEN  TO  ASHCBOFT.  IT  WAS  AN 
UNSATISFACTOBY  LETTEB  THAT ! 368 

CHAPTER  XXX 

HOW  CHALLIS  HAD  A  NEW  NEIGHBOUB  AT  DINNEB  AND  META- 
PHYSICS AFTEB.  HOW  HE  WAS  GUILTY  OF  EAVESDBOPPING, 
AND  MET  MISS  ABKBOYD  AFTEB  IN  A  LITTLE  GABDEN  CALLED 
TOPHET.  A  FOOL'S  PASSION.  WHAT  ABOUT  BOB?  .  .  .  382 

CHAPTER  XXXI 

CONCEBNING  A  BOSEBTTD,  AND  MABIANNE'S  TOBTOISE8HELL  KNIFE. 
CHALLIS'S  PBESENCE  OF  MIND.  THE  FOOL  ON  FIBE.  DEFINI- 
TION WANTED  OF  DEFINITION.  CHALLIS'S  SUDDEN  CALL  BACK 
TO  TOWN.  HOW  SIBYL  HAD  SEEN  IT  ALL 394 

CHAPTER  XXXII 

HOW  LIZABANN  AND  JOAN  PLAYED  TBUANT.  OF  A  BIDE  IN  A 
MOTOB,  AND  ITS  BAD  EFFECTS.  HOW  LIZABANN  CONVALESCED, 
AND  JUDITH  WALKED  HOME  FBOM  CHUBCH  WITH  THE  BECTOB. 
HOW  MABIANNE  HAD  BOLTED  WITH  THE  TWO  CHILDBEN  .  .  412 

CHAPTER  XXXIII 
CHALLIS'S  INSIPID  BETUBN  HOME.    WHAT  HAD  rr  ALL  BEEN,  THIS 

DBEAM?       OLD     LINKS     WITH     BYGONES.        HOW     CONFESS,     AND 

TO  WHAT?     OF   A  FIBE  GOD  GAVE  FOB  OTHEB  ENDS         .         .         .      425 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

A  BAD  BAILWAY  ACCIDENT.  AND,  AFTEB  ALL,  MABIANNE  WAS  AT 
HOME.  CHALLIS'S  REPOBT  OF  BOYD.  BUT,  NO! — MABIANNE 
WOULDN'T  HAVE  JUDITH  BLUBBED  OVEB  .  ...  434 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

OF  MUTUAL  MISTBU8T.  HANDSOME  JUDITH!  BUT  MABIANNE  HAD 
NO  WISH  TO  PBY  INTO  HER  AFFAIRS.  HOW  MATTEB8  WEBE 
COMFORTABLES.  PLEASE  BUBN  THAT  POSTSCRIPT!  CHALLIS'S 
EXPLANATION.  HOW  IT  FAILED,  AND  HE  WENT  FOB  A  WALK  .  444 


x  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XXXVI 

PAGE 

HOW  CHALLIS  AND  HIS  WIFE  PARTED.  A  DINNER  AT  THE  CLUB, 
AND  HIS  RETURN  FROM  IT.  WHAT  HAS  BECOME  OF  YOUR  MIS- 
TRESS? A  LETTER  FROM  MARIANNE  CRAIK.  DAMN  CHARLOTTE 
ELDRIDGE! 456 

CHAPTER  XXXVII 

HOW  CHALLIS  COULDN'T  BELIEVE  MARIANNE  WAS  IN  EARNEST. 
HOW  HE  SOUGHT  HER  AND  FAILED.  THE  EYES  OF  HOLY  WRIT. 
THE  DISGRACEFUL  TRUTH.  DEAR  MISS  ARKROYD!  WHY  FIGHT 
AGAINST  INFLICTED  LIBERTY?  GLENVAIRLOCH  TO  LET  .  .  .  465 

CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE  EMPTY  HERMITAGE.  A  COMPROMISE  ABOUT  BOB.  HOW  MBS. 
STEPTOE  HAD  NOTHING  TO  CONCEAL.  HOW  CINTILLA  CAUGHT 
MR.  CHALLIS.  CALYPSO'S  BUG  ISLAND.  GOOD-BYE!  PROMISE 
NOT  TO  COME  TO  BIARRITZ!  THE  SKEIN  WOUND  .  .  .  .481 

CHAPTER  XXXIX 

OF  THE  NEWS  MB.  ELPHINSTONE  TOLD  MRS.  PROTHEROE.  HOW 
CHALLIS  HAD  FOLLOWED  JUDITH  TO  MENTONE.  YOUNG  MRS. 
CRAIK  AND  HEB  DEAD  DICKY-BIBD.  HOW  CHALLIS  BECAME 
A  KNIGHT 497 

CHAPTER  XL 

HOW  MISS  FOSSETT  WENT  TO  BOYD.  ON  SUSPENSION  OP  OPINION. 
ANXIETY  ABOUT  LIZABANN.  A  VISIT  TO  JIM,  AND  A  BETBO- 
SPECT.  HOW  MISS  FOSSETT  MADE  A  NICE  MESS  OF  IT  .  .  513 


CHAPTER  XLI 

HOW  JIM  FOUND  A  MISSION  IN  LIFE,  AND  LIZABANN  MOVED  TO 
MBS.  FOBKS'S  COTTAGE.  OF  A  FINE  AUTUMN,  AND  HOW  ALL 
WAS  BIGHT  TILL  SOMETHING  WENT  WRONG.  OF  A  SEASIDE 
SCHEME,  AND  ITS  EFFECTS  ON  JIM 523 


CHAPTER  XLII 

HOW  A  NAUGHTY  LITTLE  GIRL  CAME  OUT  IN  THE  COLD  AND  TALKED 
TO  HEB  DADDY.  AND  HOW  WINTER  MADE  HEB  WORSE.  OF  A 
TALK  BETWEEN  THE  RECTOB  AND  MISS  FOSSETT,  AND  A  SUG- 
GESTION SHE  MADE  TO  HIM 534 


CONTENTS  xi 

CHAPTER  XLIII 

PAGE 

CHALLIS'S  VISIT  TO  THE  BECTOBY.  A  VISIT  TO  JIM  AT  THE  WELL. 
HOW  LIZABANN  WAS  AT  THE  SEASIDE.  ST.  AUQUSTIN'S  SUM- 
MEB.  HOW  THEY  MET  SALADIN.  HOW  CHALLIS  TOLD  ALL  .  .  543 

CHAPTER  XLIV 

THE  BECTOB'S  OPINION,  AND  WHY  IT  CABBIED  NO  WEIGHT.  OF  THE 
EFFICACY  OF  PBAYEB,  AND  WHY  CHALLIS  DOUBTED  IT.  YET 
THE  BECTOB  TOLEBATED  HIS  IMPIETY 552 

CHAPTER  XLV 

HOW  CHALLIS  AND  JUDITH  MET  AGAIN  AT  TBOUT  BEND,  AND  TALKED 
IT  OVEB.  HOW  SHE  CBIED  OFF,  FEELING  SECUBE.  AND  OF  THE 
ABBANGEMENT  THEY  MADE.  OF  A  CENTENABIAN  WHO  GOT  HALF- 
A-SOVEBEIGN 563 

CHAPTER  XLVI 

HOW  LIZABANN  SAW  THE  SEA,  AND  A  CHINESE  LADY  WBOTE  A  BAD 
ACCOUNT  OF  HEB  TO  HEB  FBIENDS.  HOW  IT  NEVER  BEACHED 
JIM,  AND  MISS  FOSSETT  WAS  WIBED  FOB.  HOW  THE  BECTOB 
HAD  TO  GO  TO  CHIPPING  CHESTEB  ....  574 


CHAPTER  XLVII 

OF  THE  APPBOACH  OF  LIZABANN'S  BETUBN,  AND  HOW  JIM'S  HOPES 
WEBE  FED  BY  OLD  DAVID.  HOW  JIM  DID  NOT  CUBSE  A  MOTOB- 
CAB.  HOW  LIZABANN  DIED  OF  TUBEBCULOSIS  .  585 


CHAPTER  XLVIII 

HOW  JIM  ADDED  STOBIES  TO  HIS  AIB-CASTLE,  AND  SMOKED  HIS  LAST 
PIPE.  HOW  HE  KNEW  CHALLIS'S  VOICE  AGAIN.  WHO  HAD  TO 
BE  AT  THE  PABK  GATE  BY  NINE.  HOW  JIM  HEARD  THE  MOTOB 
COMING  BACK,  AND  LIZABANN'S  VOICE.  HOW  ATHELSTAN  TAYLOB 
ABBIVED  WITHOUT  HEB.  OF  JIM*S  DEATH,  AND  HEBS  .  .  .  599 


CHAPTER  XLIX 

JTTDITH'S  VAGABIES.  HOW  SHE  BROUGHT  SIB  ALFBED  CHALLIS,  IN- 
SENSIBLE, TO  BOYD  HALL  IN  A  MOTOB.  A  MESSAGE  PEB  MB. 
BROWNRIGG  TO  THE  RECTOR.  HOW  TO  PBOBE  THE  MYSTERY. 
JUDITH'S  BESERVE.  PUBLIC  IMPATIENCE.  THE  CHAUFFEUR'S 
TESTIMONY  614 


xii  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  L 

PAGE 

OF  MARIANNE  AT  BEOAD8TAIRS,  AND  THE  CONSTBUCTION  OF  A 
"  DREADNOUGHT."  AND  HOW  SHE  BEAD  OF  HEB  HUSBAND'S 
ACCIDENT  ON  ITS  ARMOUR-PLATES,  AND  AT  ONCE  STARTED 
FOR  ROYD.  BUT  SUPPOSE  THEY  CALLED  HEB  "LADY  CHALLIS  " !  628 

CHAPTER  LI 

HOW  CHALLIS  CAME  TO,  AND  SPOKE.  BUT  HE  ASKED  FOR  MARIANNE, 
AND  DIDN'T  KNOW  JUDITH  FROM  ADAM.  HOW  THE  LATTER 
PROMISED  TO  TELL  HER  FATHER.  THE  WORLD'S  GUESSES, 
MEANWHILE.  HOW  THE  DUCHESS  SAID  WHAT  THE  POINT  WAS, 
AND  CHALLIS  BELAPSED 643 

CHAPTER  LII 

OF  JUDITH'S  STATE  OF  MIND,  AND  HOW  SHE  TOLD  HER  FATHER. 
BUT  DID  NOT  IMPRESS  HIM  AS  HE  WOULD  HAVE  WISHED.  WHO 
KNOWS  WHAT  JUDITH  WAS?  OF  A  MYSTERIOUS  VISITOR  TO  THE 
HALL.  HOW  NO  ONE  RECOGNIZED  MARIANNE.  IS  MY  HUSBAND 
DYING?  A  SCENE  ON  THE  BIG  STAIRCASE,  AND  HOW  TWO  TOFFS 
WERE  FAR  FROM  ODIOUS.  HOW  THE  NURSE  RECOGNIZED  ATHEL- 
STAN  TAYLOR.  HOW  JUDITH  SAID  GOOD-BYE  TO  CHALLIS.  HOW 
IT  CAME  OUT  WHO  MR.  KEITH  HORNE'S  FRIEND  WAS  .  .  .  652 

CHAPTER  LIII 

A  POSTSCRIPT.  MR.  AND  MBS.  ATHELSTAN  TAYLOB.  MB.  AND  MBS. 
BBOWNRIGG.  ODDS  AND  ENDS  OF  SEQUELS.  THE  DBEAM 
VANISHES,  BEADABLE  BITS  AND  ALL! 674 


THE  AUTHOR  TO  HIS  READERS  ONLY 688 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 


CHAPTER  I 

OF    LIZARANN    COUPLAND,    HER    FATHER    AND    HER    FAMILY.         OF    HIS 
PREVIOUS  STORY,  AND  LIZARANN'S  BIRTH 

LIZARANN  COUPLAND  did  not  know  what  her  father's  employment 
was ;  but  she  knew  that,  every  morning,  she  saw  him  to  the  corner 
of  Bladen  Street,  put  his  left  hand  on  the  palin's  of  number  three, 
and  left  him  to  shift  for  himself.  She  was  on  honour  not  to  watch 
him  down  Bladen  Street,  and  she  had  a  keen  sense  of  honour.  She 
also  knew  by  experience  that  when  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Steptoe,  said  she 
would  learn  her  a  lesson  she  wouldn't  easy  forget,  Mrs.  Steptoe  was 
not  referring  to  teacher-book  instruction  like  at  school.  And  this 
lesson,  Lizarann  understood,  would  be  imparted  by  her  aunt  with 
some  blunt  instrument,  perhaps  a  slipper,  in  case  she  failed  to  ob- 
serve her  promise.  She  was  not  to  go  spyin'  and  starin'  after 
Father  no  farther  than  where  it  was  wrote  up  "  Old  Vatted  Rum, 
fivepence-halfpenny  "  at  the  Green  Man  and  Still.  It  was  a  com- 
pact, and  Lizarann  observed  it — always  running  away  as  fast  as 
possible  to  get  out  of  reach  of  temptation  as  soon  as  ever  her 
father's  fingers  closed  on  the  knob  of  a  particular  low  paling.  It 
was  a  paling  good  to  turn  upside  down  over,  which  affirmed  the 
territorial  rights  of  the  Green  Man  over  a  certain  six-foot  fore- 
shore of  pavement  liable  else  to  be  claimed  by  the  Crown,  or  the 
Authority. 

Lizarann's  father,  James  Coupland,  was  stone-blind,  and  the 

reason  she  was  sent  with  him  every  morning  was  because  he  had  to 

cross  Cazenove  Street,  and  Dartley  Street,  and  Trott  Street,  before 

you  come  to  pavement  all  the  way,  and  it  wasn't  safe.     As  soon  as 

you  got  to  the  Green  Man,  why  there  you  were !     Only  like  touchin' 

the  wall,  and  your  stick  on  the  right,  and  on  you  kep'  direck.     But 

,  as  to  what  Lizarann's  father  did,  at  some  place  on  this  side  of  the 

r'next  bad  crossing,  his  six-year-old  daughter  never  could  guess.     All 


2         IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

she  knew  was  that  she  was  useful,  and  assisted  towards  some  public 
object,  not  easily  understood  by  a  little  girl,  when  she  piloted  her 
father  to  and  from  his  starting-point  of  continuous  pavement,  as 
a  ship  through  shoals  and  cross-currents,  to  the  mouth  of  a  canal. 
But  the  metaphor  of  Lizarann's  flight  when  she  left  the  ship  to  its 
captain  is  not  an  easy  one.  If  only  metaphors  would  not  be  so  lob- 
sided  ! 

That  her  father  was  a  supplicant  for  public  charity  was  a  sur- 
mise that  never  crossed  Lizarann's  mind.  An  idea  can  be  got  of 
how  she  thought  of  him  by  any  young  lady  who  knows,  for  in- 
stance, that  her  father  is  in  the  Custom-House,  but  who  has  never 
seen  the  Custom-House,  and  has  no  idea  what  he  does  there;  or 
even  by  one  who,  having  for  parent  a  sexton,  and  being  kept  in 
ignorance  of  his  functions,  conceives  of  him  as  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury;  or  more  easily — to  take  yet  another  parallel — by  one 
situated  like  Lizarann's  little  friend  Bridgetticks,  down  a  turnin' 
out  of  Trott  Street,  whose  grandfather  was  in  an  almshouse;  but 
who  was  inflated  past  all  bearing  by  his  livery  or  uniform  when  the 
old  chap  was  out  for  his  holiday,  and  Bridget  was  allowed  to  walk 
with  him  all  along  Trott  Street  and  round  the  Park.  There  was 
no  abidin'  of  her,  struttin'  about! 

"My  grandfather's  richer  than  your  father,"  said  Bridgetticks, 
after  one  such  occasion,  "  and  he's  got  his  heyesight,  too." 

"  Fathers  are  better  than  grandfathers,"  said  Lizarann.  "  Fathers 
goes  down  Bladen  Street  holdin'  on  to  nuffin',  and  ain't  they  rich, 
neither?  My  father  he  fetches  home  nine  shillings  in  coarpers. 
Aunt  Stingy,  she  let  Uncle  Steptoe  get  at  it,  and  he  laid  some  of  it 
out  in  gin."  The  name  of  this  aunt,  as  Lizarann  pronounced  it, 
seemed  to  ascribe  a  waspish  character  to  its  owner  rather  than  a 
parsimonious  one. 

"  You  lyin'  little  thing,  how  you  ever  can ! "  exclaimed  Bridget- 
ticks.  This  was  because  the  daring  sum  of  nine  shillings  took  her 
aback.  But  on  consideration  another  line  of  tactics  seemed  more 
effective.  "  Nine  shillin's  ain't  nothin',"  she  said.  "  My  grand- 
father, he's  got  an  allowance  regular,  Tie  has." 

Lizarann  paused  before  replying.  She  was  confronted  with  an 
unforeseen  thing,  foreign  to  human  experience.  What  was  an  al- 
lowance ?  On  the  whole,  it  would  be  better  to  keep  clear  of  it.  She 
changed  the  venue  of  the  discussion.  "He's  dressed  up,  he  is," 
she  said.  But  she  spoke  with  diffidence,  too,  and  her  friend  felt 
conciliated. 

"  Dressed  up's  a  falsehood,"  she  said,  but  without  asperity. 
"If  you'd  'a  said  cloze  like  the  Lord  Mayor's  Show,  now!  But 


little  infant-school  pippings  like  you  don't  know  nothink."  Lizar- 
ann  felt  put  upon  her  mettle. 

"My  father,"  she  said,  "he's  got  a  board  with  wrote  upon. 
Hangs  it  round  his  neck,  he  does.  Like  on  Harthurses  carts  and  the 
milk." 

"  You  never  see  it  on  his  neck,  not  yet  you  can't  read.  You 
can't  read  the  words  on  Arthurses  cart."  But  Lizarann  could  read 
one — the  middle  one — and  did  it,  a  syllable  at  a  time :  "  Prov-i-ded." 
It  was  correct,  and  a  triumph  for  the  decipherer.  But  she  was 
doomed  to  humiliation.  Bridgetticks  was  a  great  reader,  like 
Buckle,  and  could  read  what  was  wrote  on  milk -carts  all  through. 

"Any  little  biby  could  read  that!  You  can't  read  '  f  ammy-lies,r 
nor  yet  'dyly.'  It's  no  use  your  tryin'."  But  Lizarann  felt  un- 
happy, and  yearned  for  Culture,  and  tried  very  hard  to  read  "  fam- 
ilies "  and  "  daily  "  on  each  side  of  "  provided,"  while  Bridgetticks 
gave  attention  to  a  doll's  camp  on  the  doorstep.  But  "  families  "  is 
very  hard  to  read — you  know  it  is ! — and  Lizarann  quite  forgot  to 
put  back  a  beautiful  piece  of  stick -liquorice  in  her  mouth  during 
her  efforts  to  master  it. 

Anybody  would  have  thought,  to  look  along  Tallack  Street, 
where  this  colloquy  took  place,  that  the  announcement  on  Arthurses 
cart  "Families  provided  daily"  was  followed  out  literally  by 
Arthurs,  and  that  that  Trust  or  Syndicate  was  driving  a  brisk 
trade  in  the  families  it  provided  daily.  To-day  was  a  holiday  at 
the  Board  school,  and  the  whole  street  teemed  with  prams.  And 
in  every  pram  was  one  biby,  or  more,  assimilating  Arthurses  milk. 
But  they  themselves  had  not  been  provided  by  Arthurs ;  merely  the 
milk. 

The  prams  were  nearly  the  only  vehicles  in  Tallack  Street,  which 
ran  straight  acrost  from  the  railway-arch  to  the  'Igh  Road, 
parallel-like,  as  you  might  say,  to  Trott  Street.  Even  Arthurses 
cart  wasn't  a  real  cart,  only  drove  by  hand.  A  nearer  approach 
to  an  ideal  was  the  coal,  which  came  behind  a  horse,  and  sold  itself 
for  a  shillin'  a  hundred,  more  or  less,  accordin'  as  the  season.  The 
scales,  they'd  weigh  down  to  twenty-eight  pound,  if  you  didn't  want 
to  have  capital  lying  idle;  but  then  it  was  a  sight  easier  to  be 
cheated  at  that,  and  you  could  always  bring  two  coal-scuttles, 
and  if  one  of  'em  was  wore  through,  why,  a  stout  bit  of  brown 
^  paper,  coverin'  in  the  hole,  and  there  you  were !  Because  the  drop- 
ping of  fragments  of  coal  on  the  pavement  was  not  only  wasteful, 
)ut  giv'  them  boys  something  to  aim  with.  Ammunition  was 
s.arce,  owing  to  the  way  the  road  was  kep';  similar,  them  boys  took 
r-ery  opportunity. 


4        IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

There  were  two  other  vehicles  that  were  known  to  Tallack  Street 
One  came  every  day  with  a  drum,  and  sold  vegetables.  The  pro- 
prietor had  made  himself  hoarse,  many  years  since,  with  shouting 
about  the  freshness  of  his  stock  between  the  outbreaks  on  the 
drum,  and,  as  life  advanced  and  his  lung-power  declined,  the  drum- 
performances  encroached  on  the  oratory.  This  suited  a  large 
majority  of  the  inhabitants,  conveying  a  sense  of  Life— was,  in 
fact,  thought  almost  equal  to  the  Play— by  those  who  had  been  to  it 
—and  was  so  appreciated  by  Lizarann  and  Bridgetticks  that  they 
would  petition  to  be  allowed  to  stand  in  contact  with  the  drum  to 
feel  the  noise  inside  of  'em  like. 

The  other  vehicle  was,  however,  the  climax  of  the  Joy  of  Liv- 
ing in  Tallack  Street,  only  it  demanded  a  'apenny  a  time,  and 
you  had  to  save  up.  But  if  you  could  afford  it,  it  was  rapture. 
How  describe  it?  Well,  it  was  drawed  by  a  donkey,  and  went 
round  and  round  and  round.  You  yourself,  and  your  friends,  sat 
on  truncated  chairs  at  the  end  of  radial  spokes  rotating  horizon- 
tally on  a  hub,  which  played  melancholy  tunes,  and  you  could  tell 
what  they  were  by  looking,  because  there  was  the  ticket  of  it,  every 
time  a  new  tune  come.  But  the  execution  supplied  no  clue,  or  very 
little,  to  its  identity. 

Tallack  Street,  as  you  will  have  inferred,  was  a  cul-de-sac,  and 
therefore  very  popular  as  a  playground  with  the  children  of  the 
neighbourhood.  It  ended  in  a  dead  wall,  formerly  enclosing  an 
extinct  factory,  which  had  survived  the  coming  of  the  railway,  by 
which  it  had  been  acquired,  and  for  some  reason  spared;  about 
which  factory,  or,  rather,  its  remains,  an  understanding  had  been 
current  for  about  a  generation  that  it  could  be  took  orf  lease  from 
the  Company  and  adapted  as  workshops.  The  board  was  almost 
illegible,  except  one  word  "inquire,"  of  no  value  apart  from  its 
sequel,  which  anyone  who  could  read  would  have  told  you  at  once 
was  a  name  and  address;  but  as  to  what  name  and  what  address, 
it  would  have  taken  a  scollard  to  tell  that. 

There  came  occasionally  to  Tallack  Street  a  lady,  who  appeared 
to  Lizarann  to  make  her  way  into  her  Aunt  Steptoe's  home  on  in- 
sufficient pretexts.  She  certainly  was  not  the  sort  of  lady  to  get 
her  shoes  mended  by  a  working  cobbler  in  a  suburban  slum,  and 
Lizarann  made  no  pretence  of  understanding  her.  She  saw  very 
little  of  any  of  her  aunt's  visitors,  because  she  was  always  sent,  GJ 
bundled,  out  the  moment  they  appeared,  and  only  allowed  in  th 
house  again  after  their  departure. 

She  was  interested  and  pleased,  therefore,  when  this  lady,  w 


was  dressed  quite  beautiful,  developed  as  a  friend  of  Teacher,  the 
familiar  spirit  of  the  Dale  Road  Schools,  where  this  little  girl  was 
learning  to  sew  quite  beautiful.  She  was  still  more  interested 
when  she  became  aware  that  the  conversation  between  these  two 
ladies  related  to  her  own  family.  Teacher  and  the  lady  talked 
out  quite  loud  close  to  her — as  if  she  didn't  matter,  bless 
you! 

"  All  the  streets  are  not  as  bad  as  Tallack  Street,"  said  the  lady. 
"And  all  the  houses  in  Tallack  Street  are  not  so  bad  as  that 
house  at  the  end.  People  named  Townroe,  I  think — awful  people !  " 

"  Do  you  mean  Steptoe  ? " 

"  Oh  yes — Steptoe.  I've  tried  to  talk  to  the  woman,  and  it's 
perfectly  useless.  You  can't  do  anything  when  the  man's  in  the 
way.  And  as  for  him — well,  you  know,  Adeline,  when  these  peo- 
ple don't  attend  either  church  or  chapel,  it's  simply  hopeless. 
There's  nothing  to  begin  upon." 

"  The  man  drinks.     Of  course !  " 

"  Of  course !  He  seemed  sober,  though,  the  only  time  I  saw 
him,  but  very  sulky.  Oh  dear ! — he  was  trying." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"He  wouldn't  say  anything — wouldn't  answer!  And  he  said 
to  his  wife:  'You  say  a  something  word' — you  understand, 
Adeline? — 'you  say  a  something  word,  and  see  if  I  don't  smack 
your  eye.  You  try  it ! '  My  daughter  talked  for  an  hour,  and 
then  he  said:  'If  you  think  you'll  sedooce  me  into  committing 
of  myself,  you'll  find  you're  mistook.  So  I  should  think  better  of 
it,  if  I  was  you.  Yours  werry  truly,  Robert  Steptoe.'  Just  a8  if 
he  was  writing  a  letter."  Both  ladies  laughed,  and  Lizarann 
pricked  her  finger  badly,  and  it  redded  all  over  the  'emstitch.  But 
she  couldn't  understand  the  laugh.  She  was  not  fond  of  her  aunt's 
husband;  you  can't  love  pock-marks  unless  they  have  some  coun- 
terpoise in  beauty  of  disposition.  But  she  had  a  certain  spirit  of 
partisanship  about  her  belongings,  too ! 

"I  suppose  the  children  go  to  some  school — Board  School  or 
something,"  said  Teacher. 

"  They  haven't  children,  thank  Heaven !  these  people,"  said  the 
outside  lady.  "But  there's  a  little  girl — somehow — with  a  father. 
They  said  she  came  here — at  least,  I  suppose  the  '  school-house  up 
the  road '  meant  here." 

"  Then  she  must  be  here  now.  What  was  her  name  ?  Did  you 
make  out  ? " 

c  "Eliza  Ann  something — Doubleday,  I  think,  as  near  as  I  can 
recollect.  No,  it  wasn't  Doubleday.  What  could  it  nave 


6         IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

been?  ..."  And  this  lady  tapped  one  hand  with  the  other,  to 
keep  on  showing  how  hard  she  was  thinking. 

"  Was  it  Eliza  Ann  Coupland  ?  Come  here,  Lizarann,  and  tell 
the  lady  if  it  was  you." 

Lizarann  approached  by  instalments,  in  awe.  She  had  received 
false  impressions  from  the  conversation — one  that  her  uncle  could 
write  a  letter,  and  this  lady  knew  it.  A  second  that  her  aunt's  chil- 
dren— if  any — would  have  been  all  over  little  sand-pits  that  would 
catch  and  hold  the  grime  awful,  like  their  father,  and  that  therefore 
we  ought  to  be  thankful.  A  third  that  she  was  a  "  little  girl  some- 
how," and  she  had  never  been  told  that  she  was  one  somehow,  only 
that  she  was  a  little  girl. 

"  Are  you  the  little  girl  ? "  said  the  lady. 

"I  don't  know,  miss,"  said  Lizarann.  She  thought  the  lady 
seemed  impatient.  And  whom  did  she  mean  by  "  they  "  when  she 
said,  "  Oh  dear ! — how  trying  they  are !  "  ? 

"  Ought  I  to  tell  her  to  say  '  My  lady,'  or  not  ?  "  said  Teacher. 

"  Oh,  bother !  "  said  the  lady.  "  What  does  your  father  do,  my 
dear?  You're  a  nice  little  thing,  only  your  mouth's  too  big." 

Timid  murmurs  came  from  the  catechumen.  "  What's  that  you 
say  ?  Father  goes  out  to  work  ?  What  does  father  go  out  to  work 
at?" 

"  That's  impossible !  "  said  Teacher.  "  Her  father's  blind,  and 
she  leads  him  about." 

"I  hope  you're  not  telling  stories,  child,  like  the  rest,  because 
I  like  you  all  except  your  mouth.  Come  close  here,  so  that  I 
can  hear  you,  and  tell  me  what  your  father  does.  Only  don't  splut- 
ter or  gabble !  " 

Whereupon  Lizarann  gave  her  version  of  her  father's  professional 
employment.  She  knew  she  was  to  say,  if  pressed  on  the  point, 
that  her  father  was  "  an  asker,"  and  she  said  it,  standing  first  on 
one  leg  and  then  on  the  other  uneasily.  She  had  a  mixture  of 
misgiving  and  confidence  that  the  statement  would  be  sufficient; 
just  as  you  or  I  might  have  felt  in  stating,  for  instance,  that  our 
father  was  an  apparitor,  or  a  stevedore,  or  a  turnover-at-press.  But 
she  had  absolutely  no  idea  of  the  meaning  of  her  phrases. 

"  What  on  earth  does  the  child  mean  ?  Say  it  again,  small  per- 
son !  "  Thus  the  lady. 

"  A  asker !  "  The  child  had  the  name  perfectly  clear,  and  added 
"  Yass !  " — to  drive  it  home — with  eyes  of  assurance  standing  wide 
open.  Both  ladies  made  her  repeat  it,  and  asked  her  what  she 
meant  by  it;  but  she  evidently  did  not  know.  They  pondered  anc' 
speculated,  till  on  a  sudden  a  light  broke.  "Is  it  possible  sh< 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  7 

means  a  beggar?  "  said  Miss  Fossett.  Then  the  two  of  them  spoke 
in  an  undertone,  and  Lizarann  felt  that  her  family  affairs  were 
being  discussed  over  her  head,  but  by  creatures  too  great  for  her 
to  take  exception  to,  or  even  to  interpret.  Presently  the  lady  ad- 
dressed her  again : 

"  What  does  he  ask  for,  little  stuffy  ?  Yes,  you  may  come  as 
close  as  that.  What  does  he  ask  for,  child  ?  " 

Thereat  Lizarann,  in  support  of  her  family  credit,  said :  "  He 
took  all  of  nine  shillings  in  coarpers  once  on  a  time."  She  couldn't 
compete  with  the  lady  in  birth  and  position,  but  she  had  a  proper 
pride  in  her  race,  for  all  that. 

The  lady  and  Miss  Fossett  looked  at  one  another,  and  the  latter 
said:  "It's  quite  possible.  They  do  sometimes."  And  Lizarann 
felt  flattered  and  that  she  had  done  her  duty.  And  that  when  she 
told  her  father,  he  would  certainly  give  her  a  peppermint-drop. 
She  had  a  sense  of  an  improved  position  as  she  went  back  to  her 
sewing.  But  the  two  ladies  went  on  talking  about  her  under  their 
breath,  and  she  fancied  they  were  resuming  some  incidents  of  the 
previous  Saturday  at  Tallack  Street.  Teacher  seemed  to  have 
heard  something  of  them,  and  she  now  connected  them  with  her 
pupil.  As  the  lady  ripened  towards  departure  she  became  more 
audible. 

"  It  only  shows  the  truth  of  what  I'm  always  saying  to  Sir 
Murgatroyd.  How  can  you  expect  them  to  be  any  better  when 
they  have  such  wretched  homes?  Give  them  air  and  light  and 
sanitation  and  things,  and  then  talk  goody  to  them  if  you 
like.  .  .  .  Oh  dear! — I  must  rush.  I've  promised  to  go  with 
Sibyl  and  those  Inglis  girls  to  Hurlingham  this  afternoon."  Then 
the  lady  had  a  recrudescence  of  her  perception  that  Lizarann  was 
funny,  for  she  turned  round,  going  away,  to  say  to  Miss  FosSett: 
"  Oh  dear,  how  funny  they  are !  Fancy  an  Asker !  "  and,  as  it  were, 
fell  a  little  into  Miss  Fossett's  bosom  to  find  sympathy,  afterwards 
kissing  her,  and  saying,  "  But  how  good  you  are !  "  rather  gushily, 
and  making  off.  She  did  say,  however,  to  Lizarann:  "Good-bye, 
little  person !  Consider  I've  kissed  you.  I  would,  only  it's  such  a 
sticky  day." 

Much  of  this  conversation  would  have  been  quite  unintelligible 
to  the  child,  even  if  she  had  heard  the  whole  of  it.  Her  mind  was 
not  prepared  to  receive  it,  as,  not  having  had  much  time  to  reflect 
since  her  birth,  she  had  not  noticed  that  her  domestic  life  had  any- 
thing exceptional  about  it.  Extension  of  her  social  circle  had  not, 
so  far,  convinced  her  that  there  was  anything  unusual  in  their 
rows  and  quarrels;  in  fact,  she  was  gently  creeping  on  to  a  belief 


8        IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

that  Steptoes — their  inclusive  name — was  the  rule,  and  the  balance 
of  the  Universe  the  exception.  But  her  unconsciousness  of  the 
actual  was  liable  to  inroads  from  without,  and  that  day  at  school 
roused  the  curiosity  of  an  inquiring  mind.  Lizarann  asked  herself 
for  the  first  time  whether  the  conditions  of  her  home-life  were 
really  normal,  and  nothing  better  was  to  be  looked  forward  to  in 
the  future.  No  doubt  Tallack  Street  would  have  sided  with  the 
lady  in  the  views  she  expressed  of  any  one  house  in  it,  though 
each  house  would  have  laid  claim  to  an  exceptional  character 
for  itself.  But  in  the  case  of  Steptoe's  its  unanimity  would  have 
been  impressive;  for  Lizarann's  Uncle  Steptoe  he'd  be  in  liquor 
as  often  as  not,  and  frequently  aim  a  stool  or  suchlike  at  his 
wife's  head — besides  language  you  could  hear  the  length  of  the 
street 

It  does  not  follow  that  he  had  no  provocation.  Mrs.  Steptoe 
was  a  fine  study  of  the  effect  of  exasperating  circumstances  on  a 
somewhat  uncertain  temper,  and  Lizarann  conceived  of  the  result 
as  a  typical  aunt.  She  had  married,  some  twelve  years  since, 
from  motives  difficult  of  analysis,  a  cobbler  who  drank,  towards 
whom  she  had  always  professed  indifference.  She  seemed  to  have 
based  a  low  opinion  of  all  mankind  on  an  assumption  that  they 
were  none  on  'em  much  better  than  her  husband,  and  most  of  'em 
were  a  tidy  sight  worse.  If  so,  the  tidiness  of  the  sight  might 
have  disappointed  orderly,  old-fashioned  folk.  Not  that  Bob  Step- 
toe  was  a  bad  sort  when  he  was  sober.  Only  that  was  so  seldom. 

Now,  on  the  Saturday  evening  in  question,  this  uncle  by  mar- 
riage of  Lizarann,  having  previously  taken  too  much  beer,  took  too 
much  whisky,  and  became  quarrelsome.  "  A  man  ain't  always  an- 
swerable, look  at  it  how  you  may ! n  said  Tallack  Street.  Let  ua 
hope  Mr.  Steptoe  was  not,  as  on  this  occasion  he  loosened  three  of 
his  wife's  front  teeth  and  indented  the  bridge  of  her  nose.  His 
blind  brother-in-law,  returning  at  this  moment,  personally  con- 
ducted by  his  small  daughter,  was  unable  to  see,  but  guessed  that 
Steptoe  was  under  restraint  by  neighbours,  and  from  mixed  sounds 
of  pain  and  rage  and  inarticulate  spluttering  that  his  wife  had  been 
the  victim  of  his  violence.  Poor  Jim,  mad  with  anger,  besought 
the  restraining  party  only  to  let  him  get  hold  of  his  brother-in- 
law,  and  he  would  give  him  what  would  recall  him  to  his  memory 
on  future  occasions.  Feeling  the  desirableness  of  this,  they  com- 
plied; and  Mr.  Steptoe,  when,  after  a  painful  experience  of  the 
superior  strength  of  Jim,  he  got  his  head  out  of  Chancery,  felt  ill, 
and  was  conducted  to  bed  by  his  wife.  Of  whom  Lizarann  after- 
wards reported  that  when  she  heard  Uncle  Bob  get  louder,  Aunt 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  & 

Stingy,  she  said,  "  You  do,  and  I'll  call  Jim  back  again,"  and  then 
Uncle  Bob  he  shut  up. 

This  little  girl's  father  had  been  in  the  Merchant  Service  and 
had  lost  his  eyesight  through  an  explosion  of  petroleum  in  the  har- 
bour at  Cape  Town.  Current  belief  held  that  it  was  his  own  fault, 
saying  that  Jim  Coupland  hadn't  any  call  to  drop  a  lighted  match 
into  a  hole  in  an  oil-cask  that  was  standing  in  the  January  sun; 
still  less  was  it  necessary  that  he  should  look  after  it  through  the 
hole,  and  receive  the  full  blast  of  the  inevitable  explosion  in  his 
face.  He  admitted  these  facts,  but  maintained  that  a  hundred  oil- 
casks  might  have  exploded  in  his  face,  and  no  harm  done,  if  he  had 
not,  a  few  days  before,  seen  the  Flying  Dutchman.  This  belief 
could  not  be  shaken  by  argument,  not  even  by  the  fact  that  the 
other  men  on  his  watch,  all  of  whom  had  seen  the  Phantom  Ship, 
had  retained  their  eyesight  intact.  Didn't  old  Sam  Nuttall — and 
nobody  could  pretend  he  hadn't  been  forty  years  in  the  Navy — 
say  the  very  first  thing  of  all,  when  he  told  him  he'd  seen  the 
Dutchman :  "  Look  you  here,  my  son,"  he  said,  "  you've  got  to  look 
sharp  and  get  yourself  hanged  or  shot  or  drownded,  if  you  want 
to  die  with  eyes  in  your  head  "  ?  And  warn't  he  right  ?  Anyhow, 
the  coincidence  of  the  accident  a  few  days  later  had  created  a  firm 
faith  in  the  mind  of  Jim  Coupland,  and  very  few  had  the  heart  to 
try  to  shake  it. 

Whatever  the  cause,  Jim  Coupland  came  back  eyeless  from 
that  voyage,  and  found  his  wife  lately  delivered  of  a  female  in- 
fant that  did  well,  and  became  Lizarann.  But  her  mother  did 
ill,  presumably,  and  the  doctor  that  attended  her  did  certainly, 
if  the  verdict  of  Tallack  Street  was  warranted.  She  had  no  call 
to  die,  said  Tallack  Street.  Perhaps  its  many  matrons  did  not 
allow  enough  for  the  hideous  shock  of  poor  eyeless  Jim's  reappear- 
ance. She  did  die,  and  poor  Jim,  the  happy  bridegroom  of  a  year 
ago,  was  left  a  widower  at  eight-and-twenty,  hopelessly  blind,  with 
a  baby  he  could  never  see. 

Oh  the  tragedies  Life's  records  have  to  show,  that  remain  un- 
published, and  must  do  so! — all  but  a  chance  one  or  two,  such  as 
this  one  just  outlined. 

Lizarann  was  named  after  the  ship  her  father  made  his  last 
voyage  in,  or  almost  after  it.  The  ship  was  the  Anne  Eliza,  and 
the  parson  got  the  name  wrong.  Jim  said  it  wasn't  any  odds,  that 
he  could  reckon;  and  Mrs.  Steptoe,  his  sister,  said,  on  the  con- 
trary, it  ran  easier,  took  that  way.  So  Lizarann  she  became,  and 
Lizarann  she  remained.  And  the  tale  how  father  lost  his  eyesight 
through  seeing  the  Flying  Dutchman  was  the  ever-present  Romance 


10  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

of  her  youth,  and  would  constantly  creep  into  her  conversation, 
even  when  the  subject-matter  thereof  was  already  interesting — as, 
for  instance,  when  she  was  discussing  with  Bridgetticks  an  ex- 
pected, or  perhaps  we  should  say  proposed,  addition  to  the  family 
of  Lizarann's  doll,  which  had  been  fixed  for  the  ensuing  Sunday. 
There  could  be  no  doubt — as  there  is  usually  in  the  case  of  human 
parents — about  the  exact  hour  of  arrival,  as  the  Baby  was  ready 
dressed  for  the  event  her  intended  mother  was  looking  forward  to, 
in  hypothetical  retirement,  on  the  house-doorstep.  She  and  her 
friend  were  comparing  notes  on  previous  events  of  a  like  nature. 

"  Oh,  you  story ! "  said  Lizarann,  but  not  offensively — it  was 
only  current  chat.  "  My  father  says  I  understand.  He  says  I  un- 
derstand ship's  victuals  and  port  and  starboard."  Grasp  of  these 
involved  proficiency  in  other  departments  of  thought,  so  the  im- 
plication seemed  to  run.  But  Bridget  wouldn't  have  it  so. 

"  Ya'ar  little  silly ! "  she  said,  standing  on  the  parapidge,  and 
hanging  to  the  riling,  so  as  to  project  backwards  into  the  little  fore- 
court ;  you  couldn't,  speakin'  accurately,  call  it  a  garden,  but  it  had 
the  feelin'  about  it,  too.  "  Ya'ar  little  silly  Simplicity  Sairah  in  a 
track!  Ship's  victuals  ain't  nothing  to  understand,  nor  yet  port 
and  starboard!  Wait  till  you  can  understand  fly-wheels  and  sub- 
straction  engines !  They'll  make  you  sit  up  and  talk !  "  This  little 
girl's  father  was  an  engineer  in  charge  of  a  steam-roller. 

Bridget  would  have  said  the  exact  reverse  if  the  two  excursions 
into  the  relative  fields  of  knowledge  had  been  exchanged  between 
them.  Lizarann  respected  her  friend  too  much  to  conceive  of  her 
as  a  time-server,  and  her  mind  cast  about  to  fortify  her  position  on 
other  lines. 

"  My  father  he  says  I  can  understand  the  Flying  Dutchman,  and 
he  seen  her.  Yass  I  Afore  ever  he  lost  his  heyesight ! " 

"  He's  lyin',  then.  Dutchmen  ain't  women.  I  seen  a  picter- 
Dutchman  in  trowsers."  Lizarann  cogitated  gravely  on  this  before 
she  answered.  "  A  ship's  a  her,"  she  then  said.  "  All  ships  is 
hers."  She  then  added,  but  not  as  a  saddening  fact,  merely  as  a 
thing  true  and  noticeable,  "  He  never  seen  me,  father  didn't." 


CHAPTEK  II 

OF   JIM'S   MATCH-SELLING,  AND   HOW    HE   CAME  TO  TAKE   TO  IT.      HOW 
HE   WALKED   HOME   WITH   LIZARANN 

CAN  anyone  among  us  whose  life  is  full  of  action,  with  Hope 
in  his  heart  and  Achievement  on  his  horizon;  whose  pillow  whis- 
pers at  night  afterthoughts  of  a  fruitful  day,  and  on  the  day  that 
follows  can,  without  affectation,  reproach  the  head  that  lies  too 
long  on  it  with  having  lost  something  precious  that  cannot  be  re- 
gained— can  such  a  one  conceive  the  meaning  of  blind  or  crippled 
life,  that  left  Hope  dead  by  the  roadside  long  ago,  and  dares  not 
look  ahead  to  see  the  barren  land;  whose  pillow  speaks  no  word 
about  the  past,  but  only  welcome  hints  about  oblivion,  and  a  ques- 
tion with  the  daylight — why  rise?  Why  rise,  indeed,  and  maybe 
miss  a  dream  of  a  bygone  day  ?  Better  lie  still,  and  thank  God  for 
the  dream-world! 

"I  wonder  what  that  poor  devil  feels  like,"  said  one  first-class 
traveller  outside  the  railway-station  to  another,  who,  like  himself, 
gave  the  impression  that  he  had  plenty  of  luggage  somewhere  else, 
which  was  being  well  looked  after  by  a  servant  whose  wages  were 
too  high.  Both  were  young  men,  well  under  twenty-five  at  a  guess ; 
and  though  one  was  fair  and  the  other  was  dark,  and  they  were 
not  the  same  height,  and  their  features  were  not  alike,  still  the  pre- 
dominant force  of  their  class-identity  was  so  strong  that  individu- 
ality was  lost  in  it,  and  most  folk,  seeing  them  en  passant  would 
have  spoken  of  them  thenceforth  as  "  those  two  young  swells,"  and 
dismissed  them  with  an  impression  that  either  might  be  at  any 
time  substituted  for  the  other  without  any  great  violence  to  con- 
temporary history.  They  appeared  to  be  sauntering  to  the  train, 
and  the  poor  devil  was  Jim  Coupland,  at  his  usual  post  by  the 
long  blank  wall  he  used  to  feel  his  way  down,  after  leaving  Lizar- 
ann  at  the  corner  she  might  not  pass.  The  wonderer  had  bought 
matches  of  Jim  that  he  didn't  want — for  Jim  was  obliged  to  make 
a  show  of  selling  matches,  to  be  within  the  law — and  had  returned 
change  for  sixpence,  honourably  offered  by  Jim.  "I  can't  see  you, 
master,"  said  the  blind  man,  "  and  I  never  shall,  not  if  the  sky  falls, 
but  I  thank  ye  kindly.  And  I'll  tell  my  little  lass  on  ye,  home  to- 
ll 


12  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

night."  It  was  the  only  recompense  Jim  had  to  offer,  and  he  of- 
fered it. 

"  /  should  kill  myself  straight  off,"  said  the  other  traveller.  His 
speech  was  quite  as  consequent  on  his  friend's  as  most  current 
speech  is  on  its  antecedent;  you  listen  closely  when  you  hear  talk, 
and  see  if  this  is  not  the  case !  "  Stop  a  bit !  Don't  make  me  split 
this  cigar.  I  haven't  got  another,  and  nothing  fit  to  smoke  is 
procurable  in  this  neighbourhood  .  .  .  there! — that's  right, 
now.  .  .  .  The  little  chocket  wouldn't  snickle  out.  Let's  see! 
What  topic  were  we  giving  our  powerful  brains  to?  Oh,  ah  I — 
the  blind  beggar.  You  recollect  the  fellah  ? " 

"  Never  saw  him  before,  that  I  know  of." 

"Perhaps  you  haven't.  I  have.  But  you  remember  the  two 
little  girls?" 

"Which  two?" 

"That  morning  we  went  to  inquire  about  the  railroad  arch. 
Of  course,  you  remember."  His  friend  assented.  "Well! — that 
little  girl  is  this  chap's  kid.  She'll  come  in  the  evening  to  take 
him  home.  I've  seen  'em  about  together,  many  a  time." 

"I  remember  two  little  girls,  where  we  went  down  that  street 
my  mother  and  sister  slum  in.  Tallack  Street.  Which  was  the 
kid  ?  The  bony  one  with  the  nostril  ajar,  and  the  front  teeth,  that 
called  you  a  cure  ? " 

"  No — the  little  plummy  modest  one,  with  both  eyes  stood  open, 
and  something  to  suck.  Large  dark  eyes."  No  really  nice  young 
man,  such  as  we  like,  can  ever  mention  a  girl's  eyes,  even  a  young 
child's,  without  a  shade  of  tenderness. 

"  What  a  sensitive  youth  you  are,  Scipio ! "  His  friend  sees 
through  him.  "  The  other  was  a  little  Jezebel." 

"  Came  out  of  Termagant's  egg,  I  should  say.  Isn't  there  a  bird 
called  a  Termagant  ?  There  ought  to  be." 

"  I  quite  agree,  but  I  doubt  it.  Well — to  return  to  the  point — 
you  say  you  would  kill  yourself,  straight  off.  How  do  you  know 
that?  You  think  you  would  now,  but  you  wouldn't  when  it  came 
to  the  scratch.  This  man  doesn't  want  to  kill  himself." 

"  Because  of  the  little  girl.  He'd  kill  himself  fast  enough  if  he 
had  nothing  to  live  for." 

"  My  dear  Scipio,  that  is  sheer  petitio  principii.  A  man's  having 
no  wish  at  all  to  live  takes  his  wish  to  die  for  granted.  Unless  he 
has  an  unnatural  taste  for  mere  equilibrium  for  its  own  sake. 
But  the  real  point  is  that  if  you  were  this  chap,  you  would  have 
exactly  the  same  inducements  to  live  that  he  has — the  little  girl,  for 
instance." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  13 

"  Be  calm,  William  I  Allow  me  to  point  out  that  you  are  begging 
the  question  yourself.  The  hypothetical  form — '  If  you  were  this 
chap ' — if  interpreted  to  imply  an  exchange  of  identity  in  all  par- 
ticulars, takes  for  granted  that  what  this  chap  does  now  I  should 
do  then.  Clearly,  I  shouldn't  kill  myself,  or  shouldn't  have  done 
so  up  to  date,  as  he  hasn't.  But  the  meaning  of  my  remark  is  ob- 
vious to  any  mind  not  warped  and  distorted  by  casuistry.  I  refer 
more  particularly  to  your  own.  Its  meaning  is  that  if  I  had  two 
scabs  instead  of  eyes,  and  was  reduced  to  flattering  the  vanity  of 
my  fellow-countrymen  in  order  to  stimulate  their  liberality,  I 
should  by  preference  select  Euthanasia."  And  he  lighted  his 
cigar,  which  had  been  waiting. 

"  I  wish  that  little  girl  was  here  now,  to  call  you  a  *  cure '  again, 
Scipio.  She  did  you  a  lot  of  good." 

Jim  Coupland  heard  as  far  as  "I  should  kill  myself  straight 
off,"  which  he  certainly  was  not  meant  to  do  by  the  speakers.  But 
neither  of  them  were  on  their  guard  against  the  quickened  hear- 
ing of  the  blind,  and  neither  of  them  heard  that  Jim  answered, 
though  each  had  an  impression  the  blind  man  was  talking  to  him- 
self. As  for  Jim,  his  impression  was  that  his  words  reached.  But 
then  he  had  no  means  of  knowing  how  far  off  the  young  men  were, 
and  that,  as  against  the  shrewdness  of  his  own  hearing,  they  were 
little  better  than  deaf  at  that  distance.  What  he  said  was: 

"I  was  minded  to,  young  Master,  at  the  first  go  off.  But  the 
wish  was  on  me  strong  for  the  voice  of  my  wife,  and  the  lips  of 
her.  And  when  I  lost  her — ye  understand — it  was  the  cry  of  the 
baby  new-born  that  held  me.  I'd  be  shamed  to  think  upon  it  now, 
young  Master.  The  day's  bound  to  go  by,  and  I  mean  to  bide  it 
out." 

"Who  are  you  lecterin'  to?  Polly— pretty  Polly!"  Thus  an 
unfeeling  fiend  of  a  boy,  who  hears  poor  Jim  talking  to  the  empty 
air.  But  Jim,  if  he  hears,  does  not  heed  him.  His  mind  is  far 
away,  thinking  of  the  dreadful  day  of  his  return  to  his  wife  and 
her  week-old  baby,  and  his  coming  to  know  that  his  mishap,  an- 
nounced by  letter  the  day  before,  had  been  kept  from  her,  and  was 
still  to  tell.  Of  the  ill-judged  attempt  to  keep  it  from  her  yet  a 
while,  and  let  him  be  beside  her  in  the  half -dark.  And  the  fatal 
sudden  light  of  a  fire  that  blazed  out,  and  her  cry  of  terror :  "  Oh, 
Jim,  man,  what  have  you  done  to  your  eyes?  n  .  .  . 

Then  of  yet  one  more  forlorn  hope — the  ill-wrought,  ill-sustained 
pretext  that  this  was  but  a  passing  cloud,  a  mere  drawback  of  the 
hour,  a  thing  that  time  would  remedy — so  ill-sustained  that  even 


14 

in  the  few  short  days  before  her  death  Jim's  wife  had  come  to 
know  that  his  eyes,  stone-blind  beyond  a  doubt,  would  never  laugh 
into  her  face  again,  would  never  rest  wrth  hers  upon  the  little  face 
she  longed  to  show  him  was  so  like  his  own.  And  then  the  end, 
and  a  grave  in  the  parish  burial-ground  he  could  not  see. 

Then  of  a  dream  of  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  of  Death,  and  of  a 
child's  cry  that  reached  him  and  called  him  back,  even  as  he 
longed  of  his  own  free  choice  and  will  to  plunge  into  its  utter 
darkness.  Then  of  a  growth  of  ease — a  sort  of  working  ease  to 
get  through  life  with — and  a  term  of  reading,  day  by  day,  hour  by 
hour,  each  tiniest  change  in  the  inflection  of  the  baby's  cry,  until 
one  day  Lizarann,  to  whom  it  had  occurred  to  glance  round  at  the 
Universe  she  had  been  pitchforked  into,  burst  into  a  not  very  well 
executed  laugh  at  its  expense,  and  made  poor  Jim  for  the  first  time 
fully  conscious  that  he  had  a  daughter. 

It  would  be  hard  to  tell  all  the  struggles  he  went  through  before 
he  could  reconcile  himself  to  a  new  position  in  life,  mendicancy 
under  pretence  of  match-selling.  He  did  it  at  last,  urged  by  grim 
necessity  and  Mrs.  Steptoe.  Perhaps  we  should  say  stung  by  the 
latter  rather  than  urged,  for  her  attitude  was  that,  eyes  or  no  eyes, 
if  her  brother  wasn't  going  to  do  a  hand's  turn  for  himself,  he  might 
pack  up  his  traps  and  go,  brat  and  all !  Who  was  he  that  he  was  to 
eat  his  sister  out  of  house  and  home?  And  all  because  he  was  too 
proud  to  beg,  forsooth!  Wasn't  he  begging  already,  and  wasn't 
she  alms-giving?  Yes! — only  it  was  to  be  all  underhanded! 
Nothing  fair  or  above-board!  Why  should  he  be  ashamed  to  ask 
the  public  for  what  he  wasn't  ashamed  to  take  from  two  toiling 
relatives,  the  weaker  of  whom  had  suffered  so  much  already  from 
the  disgusting  drinking  habits  of  the  other?  Jim  gave  way,  and 
found  excuses  for  his  sister — he  always  did — in  these  same  dis- 
gusting habits.  Perhaps  he  was  right.  Anyhow,  he  gave  way. 
And  an  old  mate  of  his  faked  him  up  the  inscription  afore-men- 
tioned, and  supplied  the  picture  of  the  Flying  Dutchman  from  his 
narrative  of  the  incident.  And  well  Jim  remembered  how  the  cord 
he  hung  it  from  his  neck  by  got  frayed  and  broke,  and  brought 
back  to  his  mind  another  cord  his  hand  once  grasped,  as  he 
swayed  to  and  fro  at  the  weather  ear-ring  of  a  topsail;  and  his 
wondering — would  the  frayed  strands  of  the  sheet  hold  under  the 
great  strain  of  his  back-draw,  or  snap  and  fall  with  him  into  the 
black  gulf  that  was  hungering  for  him  below?  He  could  hear 
again  the  music  of  the  gale  that  sang  in  the  shrouds,  feel  again 
the  downward  plunge  of  the  hull  into  the  trough  of  the  sea,  and 
breathe  again  the  air  that  bore  its  flying  foam.  Then  he  thought 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  15 

to  himself,  would  not  a  plunge  into  that  black  gulf,  then  and 
there,  have  been,  after  all,  the  best  thing  for  him?  And  answered 
his  own  thought  without  noting  a  strangeness  in  its  wording: 
"  What ! — and  never  seen  my  little  lass !  " 

But  the  happy  fancy  that  Jim  did  not  beg,  but  only  asked, 
took  hold  of  the  imagination.  Of  course  he  would  not  beg — he 
would  scorn  to  do  so — he,  the  strong  seaman,  who  had  lived  a  life 
of  danger  half  of  those  whose  footsteps  passed  him  daily  would 
have  flinched  to  think  of !  Why  should  he  hesitate  to  ask  of  them 
what  he  would  have  given  so  freely  to  any  one  of  them  himself — 
to  any  one  of  them  left  in  the  dark?  So  when  Lizarann  said  to 
him  one  day,  apropos  of  the  fact  that  people's  fathers  were  their 
aunt's  brothers,  "  Bridgettickses  brother's  a  'Orsekeeper.  Are  you 
a  'Orsekeeper  ? "  He  replied  that  he  wasn't,  exactly.  But  he  was 
an  Asker,  to  be  sure!  And  the  child,  catching  a  sort  of  re- 
semblance between  the  words,  remembered  it.  And,  referring  to 
her  Aunt  Steptoe,  got  it  confirmed.  It  served  as  a  barrier  for  a 
time  against  an  insight  into  the  facts. 

When  poor  Jim's  speech  was  so  brave  of  how  the  day  was  bound 
to  go  by  and  he  would  bide  it  out,  was  his  whole  heart  in  his  ut- 
terance? Was  there  no  reserve — no  suppressed  execration  of  that 
mysterious  unsolicited  Cause  that  had  stinted  him  down  to  dark- 
cess  after  a  short  half-time  of  light?  At  that  moment  he  was 
conscious  of  none — a  moment  when  he  felt  the  world  about  him — 
heard  the  voices  of  his  fellow-men — felt  on  his  face,  without 
shrinking,  the  full  stress  of  the  mid-day  sun,  whose  rays  he  should 
never  see  again.  But  how  about  the  darkness  of  the  night,  that  he 
had  learned  to  know  only  by  the  loneliness  and  the  silence  ?  In  its 
solitude  was  it  not  now  and  again  almost  his  resolve  to  die,  and  not 
await  another  day?  Almost,  yes! — but  never  quite.  Always  a 
decision  to  hear  just  once  again  the  voice  of  his  little  lass  in  the 
morning.  If  it  were  only  this  once,  and  he  should  fail  in  strength 
to  bear  that  other  day;  still,  let  it  be,  for  now!  Just  once  again! 

But  the  longest  nights  led  each  to  its  dawn,  and  poor  Jim  knew 
of  each  dawn  by  hearsay,  and  started  off  early,  on  all  days 
weather  forbade  not  too  grossly,  hold  of  Lizarann's  'and,  and 
takin'  good  care  not  to  crost  only  when  other  parties  done  the 
same,  actual-like,  so  you  might  place  reliance,  and  not  get  under 
the  'orses'  'oofs ;  and  throughout  each  day  that  followed  Jim  treas- 
ured the  anticipation  of  its  end,  and  looked  forward  to  the  coming 
of  his  little  lass  to  take  him  home.  He  would  sit  and  think  of  what 
her  small  hand  would  feel  like  in  his  when  the  welcome  hour  should 
come  for  his  departure;  and  each  day  as  that  hour  came,  and  he 


16  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

found  his  way  back  to  Vatted  Hum  Corner  to  wait  for  her,  came 
also  a  short  spell  of  tense  anxiety  lest  he  should  not  hear  her 
voice  this  time.  And  then  the  relief,  when  he  caught  the  signal  he 
had  taught  her,  through  the  noise  of  the  traffic  and  the  railway- 
whistles  near  at  hand. 

"Ye  shouldn't  sing  out  Poylot,  little  lass,"  said  he,  when  she 
turned  up  at  the  end  of  that  day — the  day  of  the  two  young  men 
and  the  sixpence.  "  Ye  should  say  Pie-lott.  Else  ye  might  be  any- 
one else's  little  lass,  not  Father  Jim's." 

"I  ain't,"  said  Lizarann  resolutely.  "I'm  Father  Jim's. 
Pi-lot  I"  She  threw  her  soul  into  a  reproduction  of  her  father's 
articulation. 

"  Nor  yet  you've  no  need  to  lose  your  front  teeth  over  it.  Easy 
does  it  in  the  end.  Now  again !  Pi-lot ! "  Whereupon  Lizarann 
repeated  the  word  with  self-restraint,  and  received  approval.  "  Not 
for  to  tear  up  the  paving-stones,  lassie,"  added  her  father,  ex- 
planatorily. 

"  What  was  that  young  varmint  a-saying  ? "  he  asked,  as  they 
started  to  return  home.  He  was  referring  to  words  overheard— 
winged  words  that  had  passed  between  his  daughter  and  a  boy. 
It  was  the  same  boy  that  had  called  him  Pretty  Poll,  who  had  fol- 
lowed him  to  the  street-corner;  and  had  then  gone  on  to  greet 
Lizarann  with  the  report  that  her  Daddy  was  waiting  to  give  her 
"  what-for,"  for  being  late — which  she  wasn't. 

Probably  he  was  the  worst  boy  in  existence — at  least,  Lizarann 
thought  he  was.  She  was  too  young  to  appreciate  his  only  virtue, 
a  total  absence  of  hypocrisy. 

"  Saying  as  it  was  your  eyes  as  was  out,  and  it  didn't  hurt  him" 
Jim  seemed  mightily  amused. 

"  What  did  you  say  to  him  over  that,  little  lass  ? "  said  he. 

"  Didn't  say  nuffint !  "  And,  indeed,  Lizarann  had  not  seen  her 
way  to  quarrelling  with  two  such  obvious  truths. 

"  What  else  was  he  a-saying?  He  said  a  bit  more  than  that.  I 
could  hear  him  giving  it  mouth." 

"  Sayin'  he'd  four  nuts  he  hadn't  ate,  and  me  to  guess  which 
'and  they  was  in  beyont  his  back  for  a  'apenny."  Lizarann  then 
explained  the  proposed  deal  at  some  length. 

"He's  a  nice  young  sportin'  charackter!  Thimble-rigging  isn't 
in  it.  Why,  lassie,  if  you  had  guessed  right,  he'd  just  have 
swopped  'em  across,  and  took  your  ha'penny.  He  wants  attendin* 
to  with  a  rope's  end,  he  does — wants  his  trousers  spilin*.  His 
mother  she  sells  the  fried  eels  and  winkles,  next  door  against  the 
little  shop  where  I" — Jim  hesitated  a  minute — " where  I  get  my 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  1? 

shaving-soap."  For  Jim  remembered  in  time  that  his  connection 
with  this  shop  was  not  to  come  to  his  child's  ears.  His  board  was 
to  be  kept  in  the  background. 

Lizarann  wanted  badly  to  frame  a  question  about  this  boy. 
Were  all  boys  nefarious  whose  mothers  sold  fried  eels  and  winkles  ? 
And  if  so,  had  this  one  acquired  a  low  moral  tone  by  contact  with 
fried  fish,  or  had  his  parent's  humble  walk  in  life  resulted  from  his 
depravity  ?  Lizarann  gave  up  the  idea  of  asking  this  question.  It 
was  too  complex.  But  she  could  get  information  about  the  barber's 
shop.  She  approached  the  subject  indirectly. 

"  Bridgetticks  she  can  read  what's  wrote  up  on  shaving-shops." 

"  What  can  she  read  on  'em,  little  lass  ? " 

"She  can  read  Easy  Shaving  Twopence.  And  Hegg-Shampoo 
Fourpence.  And  Fresh  Water  Every  Customer.  Round  in  the 
winder  in  Cazenove  Street." 

"Brayvo,  Bridgetticks!  But  my  little  lass  she's  going  to  read 
ever  so  well  as  Bridgetticks — ah!  and  a  fat  lot  better.  And  larn 
manners  belike,  as  well ! " 

"Bridgetticks  said  she'd  learn  Simpson's  boy  manners.  Down 
the  yard  where  there's  a  dog  killed  his  sister's  cat."  Lizarann 
spoke  evidently  with  some  idea  of  joining  the  class.  But  her 
father  had  other  views, 

"Bridgetticks  indeed!  She  couldn't  teach  manners  to  a  biled 
owl,  to  speak  of.  She  better  give  her  time  to  studying  of  'em  her- 
self. Whatever  waa  the  name  she  called  the  gentleman,  lass? 
Tell  us  again." 

*  The  long  gentleman  ? " 

"Ah!" 

"  She  didn't  call  him  nuffint." 

"  Well,  then— the  short  gentleman." 

"A  Cure," 

"Well! — that  wasn't  manners,  lassie.  She  had  ought  to  have 
called  him  Sir — or  his  name,  for  that  matter,  if  she'd  come  by  it. 
Couldn't  she  say  his  name  with  Mister  ?  In  course  she  could,  only 
she  didn't  know  it." 

Lizarann  stopped  and  stood  nodding  on  the  pavement. 
"Bridgetticks,  she  knowed  his  name — the  short  one,"  she  said. 
"Because  the  tall  gentleman,  he  called  it  him."  Then  the  two 
went  on  again,  Jim  having  reclaimed  the  hand  he  had  let  go  for 
a  moment  to  confirm  a  strange  quick  perception  of  the  child's  em- 
phatic nods  by  touching  her  head. 

"  What  was  the  name  of  the  short  one  the  tall  gentleman  called 
him  by  1 "  he  asked.  This  was  not  merely  to  make  conversation. 


18  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Jim  had  fancied  he  caught  a  familiar  sound  in  the  name  one  of 
his  young  swells  of  the  morning  had  applied  to  the  other.  He  had 
not  heard  their  reference  to  Tallack  Street.  Had  he  done  so,  he 
would  at  once  have  identified  them  as  the  subjects  of  a  narrative  of 
Lizarann's  some  days  since.  She  now  offered  an  imperfect  ver- 
sion of  the  name,  and  Jim  at  once  caught  the  connection.  He  had 
heard  the  name  Scipio — used  by  the  young  man  when  he  gave  him 
his  sixpence  for  a  box  of  Vesuvians. 

"  Sippy-oh — was  that  it  ?  "  said  he.  "  Well,  that's  a  queer  start 
too.  I've  seen  your  two  gentlemen,  little  lass,  only  this  morning. 
One  of  'em,  he  planked  down  a  tanner  for  one  box.  Not  Sippy-oh 
— t'other  young  master.  What  were  the  two  of  'em  doing  again 
down  in  Tallack  Street?  " 

Lizarann  braced  herself  for  her  narrative  by  drawing  a  long 
breath  and  standing  with  her  eyes  very  wide  open,  then  plunged 
in  medias  res  with  an  oppressive  sense  of  responsibility  for  his- 
torical truth,  but  without  punctuation.  She  pooled  all  her  stops, 
however,  and  by  throwing  in  a  handful  at  long  intervals  gave  her 
lungs  an  opportunity  of  expanding. 

"They  was  two  gentleman  in  one  hansom  and  I  seen  'em 
through  the  open  winder  and  Aunt  Stingy  she  shet  the  winder  and 
Bridgetticks  she  come  lookin'  in  at  the  winder  and  Aunt  Stingy 
she  says  I'll  flat  your  nose  for  you  she  says  an  impident  little  hussy 
and  she  goes  out  for  to  catch  hold  on  her  and  Bridgetticks  she 
sings  out  Old  Mother  Cobblerswax  and  hooks  it  off.  .  .  ."  All 
the  consolidated  overdue  stops  came  in  here. 

Jim  put  in  a  word  to  steady  the  narrative,  derived  from  its 
earlier  recital :  "  And  then  you  got  round  behind  your  aunt,  and  the 
gentlemen  were  talking  to  the  cab-driver,  hey,  lassie  ? " 

Lizarann  nodded  at  her  father  exactly  as  if  he  could  have  seen 
her.  However,  the  way  she  said  "  yass  "  did  all  the  work  of  her 
nod,  as  well  as  its  own,  and  she  continued  with  a  new  lease  of 
breath :  "  The  driver  he  says  '  Don't  see  no  spremises  '  he  says,  and 
the  gentlemen  they  says  '  Don't  see  no  spremises '  they  says,  and 
then — '  Ho  here's  a  little  girl '  they  says  all  at  wunst.  ..." 

"  And  that  was  my  little  lass,  warn't  it,  lassie  ?  And  she 
showed  'em  where  the  board  was  up.  That  was  the  way  of  it,  I  lay. 
And  whereabout  was  Bridgetticks  the  whilst  ? "  Lizarann  was  be- 
coming more  reposeful  in  style,  and  was  working  round  to  a  proper 
distribution  of  stops. 

"  Bridgetticks,"  she  replied,  "  was  in  behind  the  palin's  at 
'Acker's,  and  was  for  biting  Aunt  Stingy  if  she  laid  'ands.  And 
Jimmy  'Acker's  granny  she  come  out,  and  '  Leave  the  child  alone ' 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  19 

she  says.  But  the  two  gentleman  come  down  out  of  the  hansom 
scab  and  said  there  was  no  spremises,  but  I  was  a  nice  little  girl 
and  should  have  a  trep'ny  bit.  Yass !  " 

"  And  then  your  aunt  she  looked  round  after  you,  I'll  go  bail. 
.Wasn't  she  in  it,  little  lass?" 

"  Then  Aunt  Stingy  she  giv'  over,  'cos  of  Jimmy  'Acker's  granny, 
and  come  to  see.  And  the  tall  gentleman,  he  needn't  trouble  her, 
he  says,  and  she  kep*  a  little  way  off.  And  I  kep'  the  threp'ny  bit 
in  my  mouf,  I  did." 

"So  she  mightn't  get  it?"  Lizarann  nodded.  "And  where 
•was  Bridgetticks  ? " 

"  Over  acrost,  feelin'  up  like,  'cos  of  Aunt  Stingy." 

An  image  passes  through  Jim's  mind  of  a  powerful  rodent 
working  stealthily  round,  clear  of  its  enemy,  to  join  the  colloquy, 
and  perhaps  secure  another  threepence.  His  image  of  Bridget- 
ticks  is  not  a  pleasing  one.  He  doesn't  believe  in  her  sex  or  her 
girlhood — classes  her  with  the  fiendish  boy  at  the  fish-shop,  and 
rather  wishes  he  could  let  her  loose  on  him  to  run  him  down,  as 
one  slips  a  dog  from  a  leash.  She  would  do  it. 

"  And  how  came  she  to  cut  in  ?    It  was  my  little  lassie's  cake." 

But  Lizarann  felt  hurt  on  her  friend's  account.  "  She  giv'  me 
two  apples,"  she  said,  and  left  the  point,  as  one  sure  to  be  under- 
stood. Then  she  continued :  "  The  gentlemen  wanted  for  to  know 
our  names,  and  Bridgetticks  said  not  if  took  down.  So  the  gen- 
tleman put  the  pencil  away  and  she  says  Bridgetticks  and  I  says 
Lizarann  Toopland." 

"  Right  you  were !    And  then  what  did  the  gentleman  say  ? " 

"  Not  to  shout  both  at  once." 

"  Which  did  ye  like  best,  little  lass — which  gentleman  ?  "  But 
the  child  is  uncertain  on  this  point.  Being  pressed,  she  admits  a 
tendresse  for  the  one  called  Scipio;  but  it  appears  that  Bridget- 
ticks  has  condemned  him  on  account  of  his  jaw,  pointing  to  a  cer- 
tain sententiousness  of  style,  which  has  already  been  in  evidence  in 
this  story.  Her  discrimination  of  him  as  a  Cure,  too,  will  show 
those  who  are  familiar  with  the  use  of  this  term  that  she  placed 
a  low  value  on  his  reflections. 

Her  father,  having  certainly  spoken  with  these  two  gentlemen, 
felt  some  curiosity  about  what  they  could  want  in  Tallack  Street. 
His  having  spoken  with  them  himself  had,  of  course,  given  them 
an  interest  for  him  he  had  not  felt  before.  But  inquiry  of  a  child 
not  seven  years  old  has  to  be  conducted  cautiously.  If  too  hard 
pushed,  she  will  invent.  "What  did  ye  make  out  they  came  for, 
lassie  ? "  he  asked. 


20  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Spremises,"  was  the  reply,  given  with  confidence.  But  this 
seemed  ill-grounded  when  she  added,  "  What  does  spremises  mean, 
daddy?" 

"  Houses  with  bills  in  the  winder,  lass.  Sure  I  But  didn't  they 
never  say  where  they  come  from,  nor  what  they  wanted  ? " 

"  Bridgetticks  she  knew." 

"  Where  did  she  say  they  came  from  ?  " 

"  Smallporks  Hospital."  Jim  wondered  how  on  earth  Lizarann'a 
friend  had  struck  on  this  vein  of  invention,  but  he  only  expressed 
the  mildest  doubt  of  its  accuracy  lest  he  should  upset  his  in- 
formant. As  it  was,  he  disturbed  her  slightly.  "  She  ain't  tellin' 
no  lies,"  she  added. 

"P'raps  it  warn't  so  bad  as  all  that  come  to,  lassie.  P'raps  it 
was  only  Guy's  or  'Tholomoo's  ? "  But  the  little  person  was  not 
prepared  to  accept  any  composition  that  threw  doubt  on  Bridget- 
ticks.  She  might  have  questioned  her  statements  personally,  even 
to  the  extent  of  calling  her  a  story.  But  she  felt  bound  to  defend 
her,  even  against  her  father.  So  she  nailed  her  colours,  so  to 
speak,  to  the  Smallpox  Hospital.  That  was  to  be  the  very  hospital, 
and  no  other,  that  these  two  gentlemen  were  connected  with.  She 
gave  illustrations  of  untruthfulness,  as  shown  by  contemporaries. 

"Jimmy  'Acker  he's  a  liar.  And  Uncle  Steptoe  he's  a  liar. 
Aunt  Stingy  says  so.  Bridgetticks  she  ain't.  She  speaks  the 
troof ,  she  does.  Yass !  She  says  so."  Very  open  eyes  and  a  nod. 

"  In  coorse  she  does,  and  in  coorse  she  knows."  Then  poor  Jim 
wondered  to  himself  what  this  young  person  was  like  that  his  little 
lass  had  such  faith  in.  He  continued :  "  What's  she  like  to  look  at, 
by  way  of  describing  of  her  now  ?  " 

Lizarann  had  never  described  anybody,  so  far.  That  is  to  say, 
not  consciously.  She  might  have  done  it  without  knowing  it  was 
description.  But  she  knew  quite  well  what  her  father  meant,  and 
braced  herself  up  to  authorship. 

"  She's  very  'ard,  all  over,"  she  said,  aa  a  first  item.  "  And 
she's  awful  strong.  She  is — yass!  And  she  don't  stick  out  no- 
where neither."  A  form  the  reverse  of  svelte  is  impressed  upon  her 
hearer's  inner  vision.  But  she  repents  of  the  last  item,  and  adds, 
"  Only  her  nose !  " 

"What's  her  colour  of  hair — black  colour? — yaller  colour?" 

"  T'int  no  colour  at  all,  Daddy." 

"Just  plain  hair-colour — is  that  it?" 

"  Yass  1     Pline  hair-colour." 

"  What's  her  eyes  ? "  But  this  is  too  difficult.  Lizarann  gives  it 
up.  To  say  plain  eye-colour  would  be  poor  and  unoriginal.  How- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN        21 

ever,  particulars  could  be  given  of  Bridgettickses  eyes,  apart  from 
questions  of  their  colour. 

"  She  can  squint,  she  can.    Yass — acrost ! " 

"  She  don't  want  to  it— not  she !  " 

"  Don't  she  want  to  it,  Daddy  ? "  A  timid  expression  of  doubt 
this.  "I  said — I  said — to  Bridgetticks  .  .  ." 

"  Hurry  up,  little  lass !    What  was  it  ye  said  ? " 

"I  said — to  Bridgetticks — I  said  the  boys  said  she  couldn't  be 
off  of  it,  they  did.  That's  what  the  boys  said." 

"  And  she  said  they  was  liars,  I'll  go  bail.    Hay,  little  lass  ? " 

"  She  said  they  was  liars.  Yass ! "  And  then  the  difficulties 
of  negotiating  the  passage  across  Cazenove  Street,  where  they 
had  by  this  time  arrived,  stopped  the  conversation. 

When  the  couple  were  safely  landed  on  the  opposite  pavement, 
talk  went  on  again.  Jim's  image  of  Bridgetticks  had  not  been 
improved  by  Lizarann's  description.  And  an  incident  of  her  nar- 
rative had  caused  him  to  picture  to  himself  a  terrifying  vision  of 
her. 

"  She  must  have  looked  a  queer  un,  lassie,  flattening  her  nose 
against  the  winder-pane." 

"  Aunt  Stingy  said  she'd  welt  her  down  fine  if  she  could  once 
catch  holt." 

"  Your  aunt  don't  seem  to  have  thought  her  a  beauty.  Not  with 
her  nose  against  the  glass !  What  did  you  think  yourself,  lassie  ? " 

"I  didn't  seen  her."  Her  head  shook  a  long  continuous  nega- 
tive. 

"  How  do  ye  make  that  out,  lass  ? " 

"  We  ply  at  bein*  oarposite  sides  of  the  winder-pine.  Her  out- 
side— me  in !  " 

"  Well,  then — o'  course  you  saw  her,  lassie.  You've  got  eyes  in 
your  head." 

"  I  was  a-flotting  of  my  own  nose  against  the  glast,  inside,  too 
clost  to  see.  Eight  oarposite — yass ! "  And  then  explained,  at 
some  expense  of  words,  that  this  gyme,  or  game,  was  played  by 
two  little  girls,  or  little  boys,  or  a  sample  of  each,  jamming  their 
noses  one  against  the  other  as  it  were  with  the  cold,  unpleasant 
glass  between.  The  gratification  of  doing  this,  whatever  it  was, 
might  be  enhanced  and  intensified  by  a  similar  treatment  of  their 
tongue-tips.  This  last  variation  caused  Lizarann  to  end  up  with: 
u  Outside  tistes  of  rine.  Inside  tistes  of  cleanin'  windows." 

"  I  don't  see  no  kissin'  to  be  got  out  of  that,"  said  Jim.  But  the 
inventors  of  this  game  had  evidently  never  anticipated  its  adop- 
tion by  grown-up  persons,  and  did  not  advise  it.  Their  low  natures 


22  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

could  not  enter  into  it.    It  was,  however,  made  clear  why  Bridget- 
ticks  was  invisible  during  an  innings — if  the  term  is  permissible. 

But  oh,  to  think  of  it!  Poor  Jim  had  never  seen  his  little  lass, 
whose  chatter  had  supplied  him  with  a  vivid  image — albeit,  per- 
haps, a  false  one — of  her  friend  of  ten  years  old.  Her  voice  and 
touch  were  all  he  had  to  live  for;  but  the  only  image  of  her  he 
could  get  was  from  a  grudging  admission  of  his  sister's  that  she 
might  grow  to  be  like  her  mother  in  time,  but  she  would  never 
have  her  looks.  These  looks  were  only  admitted  by  Mrs.  Steptoe 
for  strategic  purposes — videlicet,  the  cheapening  of  her  brother's 
one  possession  and  emphasizing  of  his  losses.  She  may  have  had 
no  defined  intention  of  giving  him  pain,  but  the  attitude  of 
thought  implied  formed  part  of  a  scheme  of  Jeremiads  her  life  was 
devoted  to  fostering  and  maturing.  The  looks  of  Lizarann's 
mother  were  the  only  pivot  on  which  discussion  of  the  child's  own 
could  turn  naturally  and  easily.  The  embittered  and  unsympa- 
thetic disposition  of  her  aunt  made  communication  about  them 
on  other  lines  difficult  or  impossible  to  poor  Jim. 

But  he  treasured  in  his  heart  the  idea  that  one  day  he  would 
meet  with  some  congenial  soul  whom  he  could  take  into  his  con- 
fidence, and  petition  for  a  description  of  what  his  little  lass  was 
really  like.  Unless,  indeed,  when  she  grew  older,  she  was  able 
to  tell  him  what  her  image  in  a  mirror  resembled  better  than  she 
had  done  when  once  or  twice  he  had  tried  that  way  of  eliciting  in- 
formation. For  on  those  occasions  Lizarann  had  at  first  shown 
symptoms  of  becoming  what  her  aunt  called  a  little  giggling,  af- 
fected chit,  and  had  only  been  able  to  report  that  she  looked  "  like 
Loyzarann  in  the  glast,"  and  then  had  grown  uneasy,  betrayed  a 
tendency  towards  panic,  and  hid  her  face  on  her  father  when  he 
became  earnest,  and  begged  her  for  his  sake  to  tell  him  what  she 
really  looked  like.  She  couldn't  understand  it  at  all,  and  may  have 
had  misgivings  that  she  was  being  entrapped  into  some  sort  of 
ritual  of  a  Masonic  nature.  So  Jim  had  to  wait  for  enlighten- 
ment from  herself,  and  looked  forward  to  the  day  when  she  should 
become  more  old  and  serious.  Meanwhile  what  would  he  not  have 
given  for  one  little  glimmer  to  help  his  imperfect  image  of  what 
his  little  lass  was  like,  now — now  that  her  childhood  was  there? 

But  the  darkness  was  upon  him  for  all  time.  And  the  world 
that  once  was  his  to  see  had  vanished — vanished  with  the  last 
image  his  eyes  had  known;  the  quay  at  Cape  Town  in  the  blazing 
sun,  the  Dutch-built  houses  on  the  hot  hill-side,  and  Table  Moun- 
tain dark  against  the  sky;  and  all  the  wide  sea,  a  blaze  of  white 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  23 

beneath  the  blue,  whose  strongest  glare  might  never  reach  his 
cancelled  sight  again.  And  there — so  Jim  believed,  on  the  strength 
of  a  legend  his  informant  may  have  invented  on  the  spot — when 
the  winds  were  at  their  worst  round  the  Cape  of  Storms,  might  still 
be  seen  the  source  of  all  his  evil,  the  Phantom  Ship  that  had 
blasted  his  eyesight  and  made  him  what  he  had  become.  So  fixed 
was  this  article  of  Jim's  faith  that  it  is  not  exaggeration  to  say  that 
he  drew  comfort  from  the  unending  doom  of  her  shadowy  crew. 
Come  what  might  to  him,  he  always  had  this  consolation,  that  as 
long  as  the  sea  should  last,  there  was  no  hope  of  rest  for  the  soul 
of  the  Flying  Dutchman.  It  was  something,  if  it  wasn't  much; 
and  he  told  and  retold  the  tale  to  his  little  lass,  who  was  grieved  on 
his  behalf;  but  had  somewhere,  in  the  unrevengeful  background  of 
her  mind,  a  chance  thought  of  pity  now  and  again  for  the  unhappy 
seaman  who  was  the  cause  of  his  misfortune. 


CHAPTER  m 

OP  ROYD  HALL,  AND  ITS  LITERARY  GUEST  WHO  HAD  AN  IMPOSSIBLE  WIFE 

THE  lady  who  had  shown  an  interest  in  Lizarann  at  the  Dale 
Road  Schools  was  the  wife  of  Sir  Murgatroyd  Arkroyd,  of  Royal 
in  Rankshire  and  Drum  in  Banffshire,  and  even  more  places.  The 
young  man  who  had  bought  Jim's  matches  and  returned  his  change 
was  their  eldest  son,  William  Rufus  Arkroyd.  His  friend,  whom 
he  called  Scipio,  who  was  his  college  chum  at  Cambridge  a  year 
or  so  since,  and  had  remained  his  inseparable  companion,  was  on 
this  particular  day  starting  with  him  to  pay  an  autumn  visit  to 
his  paternal  mansion,  Royd  Hall,  about  seven  miles  from  Grime, 
where  the  new  Translucent  Cast  Steel  Foundries  are. 

The  two  young  men  got  a  carriage  to  themselves,  and  played 
picquet  all  the  way  to  Furnivals,  the  little  station  where  you  get 
out  for  Royd  and  Thanes  Castle,  and  the  omnibus  meets  you.  Be- 
cause you  are  the  sort  probably  that  omnibuses  meet.  And  it  may 
be  considered  to  have  met  William  Rufus  and  Scipio  on  this  oc- 
casion, but  only  platonically ;  for  they  rode  to  the  house  in  a  dog- 
cart that  awaited  them.  However,  the  omnibus  had  the  consola- 
tion of  being  ridden  in  by  Mr.  Arkroyd's  man  Schott,  who  came 
on  in  it  with  such  luggage  as  would  not  go  under  a  seat  amenable 
only  to  card-cases  or  the  like. 

The  model  groom,  Bullett,  who  had  driven  the  trap  to  the  station, 
had  just  time  to  establish  himself  on  the  back-seat,  when  the  model 
mare  was  off  at  a  spin,  and  an  agricultural  population,  whose  con- 
victions and  diet  changed  very  little  since  the  days  of  Wil- 
liam the  Norman,  were  abasing  themselves  in  a  humiliating  man- 
ner unworthy  of  the  age  we  live  in — uncovering  male  heads  and 
bobbing  female  skirts — at  the  doors  of  cottages  whose  hygienic  ar- 
rangements were  a  disgrace  to  a  Christian  country  and  a  reflec- 
tion on  civilization.  So  said  the  Grime  Sentinel,  in  an  editorial; 
and,  as  it  spoke  as  though  the  editor  had  tried  all  these  arrange- 
ments and  found  them  wanting,  no  doubt  it  was  right. 

"  Now,  what  have  you  and  my  affectionate  brother  been  talking 
about  all  the  way  here  ? "  Thus  Judith,  the  sister  of  the  one  she  is 
not  addressing. 

24 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN        25 

Scipio  replies  at  leisure.  He  is  evidently  accustomed  to  being1 
patronized  by  this  handsome  and  self-possessed  young  lady,  who  is 
two  years  his  senior,  and  speaks  as  to  a  junior.  But,  though  she 
patronizes  him,  she  waits  until  he  chooses  to  answer. 

"Your  affectionate  brother  and  myself,  Miss  Arkroyd,  are  so 
accustomed  to  each  other's  society,  after  a  long  residence  in  college 
together,  that  it  is  only  on  rare  and  special  occasions  that  we  ex- 
change any  remarks  at  all.  We  agreed  some  time  since  that  the 
edge  of  conversation — that,  I  believe,  was  the  expression — was  taken 
off  when  each  of  the  parties  to  it  is  always  definitely  certain  what 
the  other  is  going  to  say." 

"  Nonsense ! — ridiculous  boy !  Do  you  expect  me  to  believe  that 
you  two  rode  all  that  way  and  never  spoke  ? " 

Scipio  reconsiders,  and  takes  exception  to  his  own  speech,  with 
the  air  of  a  person  drawing  on  a  reserve  of  veracity,  a  higher  can- 
dour: "Perhaps  I  have  overstated  the  case.  We  played  picquet 
all  the  way  from  Euston.  Picquet,  as  you  are  aware,  involves  an 
occasional  interchange  of  monosyllables.  ..." 

"I  know.     One  for  his  heels  and  two  for  his  nob.    Go  on." 

"  Excuse  me.  Allow  me  to  correct  a  misapprehension.  The  ex- 
pressions you  have  quoted  belong  to  another  game — cribbage." 

"  Does  it  matter  ?    Do  go  on  with  what  you  were  saying  .   .   . 
'  involves  an  occasional  interchange  of  monosyllables '  .   .   ."    The 
young  lady  is  a  little  impatient,  and  taps. 

"Which  can  scarcely  be  regarded  as  conversation."  He  com- 
pletes the  sentence  with  deliberation.  He  seems  to  take  a  pleasure 
in  doing  so,  simply  because  of  her  impatience.  "  But  with  the  ex- 
ception of  allusions  to  the  game,  I  can  recall  no  remark  or  ob- 
servation whatever,  wise  or  otherwise." 

Whereupon  the  young  lady,  seeming  to  give  him  up  as  hopeless, 
calls  to  her  brother  in  an  adjoining  room :  "  Will !  "  and  he  replies : 
"  What  ?  Anything  wanted  ? " 

"  Yes ! — come  and  make  Lord  Felixthorpe  reasonable."  From 
which  it  is  clear  that  Scipio  is  a  lord,  or  has  a  right  to  be  called 
one.  He  is  somebody's  son,  supposably. 

This  conversation  is  taking  place  in  the  drawing-room  at  Royd, 
where  the  two  young  men  arrived  just  in  time  to  delay  dinner  half- 
an-hour,  that  they  might  have  time  to  dress.  At  Royd,  undue 
hurry  about  anything  was  unknown,  and  Mr.  Schott  had  arranged 
young  Mr.  Arkroyd's  shirt-studs  in  his  shirt,  black  silk  stockings, 
coat,  waistcoat,  and  trousers  in  a  most  beautiful  pattern  on  his 
bed  almost  before  his  apologies  to  his  mother  were  over  for  giving 
the  wrong  time  of  his  train.  He  ought  to  have  arrived  an  hour 


26 

sooner,  and  Bullett  and  the  dog-cart — or,  rather,  its  mare — had  been 
kicking  their  heels  all  that  time  at  Furnival  Station,  enjoying  the 
great  luxury  of  enforced  idleness,  with  a  grievance  against  its 
cause.  However,  it  was  all  right  by  now,  and  everyone  who  had 
not  eaten  too  many  macaroons  at  tea  had  dined  extremely  well. 

"  Smoke  a  cigarette,"  said  William  Rufus  to  his  sister,  as  he 
settled  down  on  the  split  f  auteuil.  "  Never  mind  Sibyl !  "  She 
disclaimed  Sibyl's  influence,  and  lighted  the  cigarette  he  gave  her 
at  his  own.  He  continued :  "  Z  can't  make  Scip  reasonable.  No- 
body can." 

"  He  says  you  and  he  never  exchanged  a  word,  and  that  you 
played  cribbage  in  the  train  all  the  way  without  speaking." 

"  It  was  picquet.    I  don't  know  cribbage." 

"  Oh  dear ! — how  trying  you  boys  are !  As  if  that  mattered ! 
The  point  is,  did  you  speak,  or  didn't  you  ? " 

Whereupon  each  of  the  young  men  looked  at  the  other,  and  said : 
"  Did  we  speak,  or  didn't  we  ? " 

"I  can  wait,"  said  the  young  lady;  and  waited  with  a  passive- 
ness  that  had  all  the  force  of  activity. 

"  I  understand " — thus  Scipio,  more  deliberately  than  ever— 
"that  technical  remarks  relating  to  the  game  are  excluded  by 
hypothesis." 

"  Yes !  "  from  the  catechist. 

"  Stop  a  bit,  Scip.  We  did  speak.  We  spoke  about  the  blind 
beggar." 

"I  knew  you  were  talking  nonsense.  You  talked  all  the  way. 
But  who  was  the  blind  beggar  ?  " 

"A  friend  of  Scip's — at  least,  a  father  of  one  of  his  young 
ladies." 

Miss  Arkroyd  looked  amused  more  than  curious.  "  You  haven't 
told  us  of  this  one,"  said  she.  "  Or  have  you  ?  " 

"  I  have  had  nothing  official  to  communicate,  so  far.  Possibly  a 
mere  passing  tendresse.  I  have  only  known  the  young  lady  a  very 
short  time.  I  will  promise  further  information  as  soon  as  there 
is  anything  to  communicate." 

Miss  Arkroyd  continued  to  look  at  the  speaker  as  though  to  find 
out  his  real  meaning,  half  in  doubt,  half  taking  him  au  serieux. 
But  her  brother  struck  in,  saying :  "  Nothing  interesting,  Judith. 
This  one's  too  young,  and  might  be  unsuitable  from  other  points  of 
view — eh,  Scip?" 

"  The  family  connection,"* Scipio  answers  reflectively,  "may  have 
drawbacks.  Nevertheless,  I  find,  when  I  indulge  in  the  position, 
hypothetically,  of  a  son-in-law,  that  I  do  not  shrink  from  the  image 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  27 

of  the  relation  I  have  created.  It  has  a  sort  of  sense  about  it  of  the 
starboard  watch,  and  keeping  a  good  look-out  on  foc'sles,  and 
knowing  how  to  splice  cables.  By-the-by,  Will,  this  is  an  ac- 
complishment that  might  prove  useful  in  my  family — splicing 
cables,  I  mean.  I  am  certain  that  we  can't,  at  present,  any  of  us. 
Even  my  half-brother,  though  his  grandfather — on  his  mother's 
side — is  an  Admiral,  cannot  splice  a  cable  ..." 

"  Never  mind  the  cables !     Go  on  about  the  blind  beggar." 

Her  brother,  as  one  who  knows  his  friend's  disposition  to  wander, 
supplies  consecutive  narrative :  "  The  blind  beggar's  that  sailor 
at  the  railway.  Most  likely  you've  seen  him.  .  .  .  No  ? " — re- 
plying to  a  disclaiming  headshake. — "  Well ! — take  him  for  granted. 
The  child's  his  child." 

"What  child?" 

"You've  seen  her  yourself,  I  think;  or  the  same  thing — the 
madre  has.  You  remember? — in  that  Tallack  Street  place,  on  the 
Remunerative  Artisans'  Domicile  Company's  estate.  You  told  us 
of  it  yourself,  you  know." 

"I  know  Tallack  Street  perfectly  well.  It's  the  place  where 
there  was  land  for  a  factory  that  I  thought  would  do  for  the  New 
Idea.  Have  you  seen  it  ?  " 

"  Why,  of  course !  Scip  and  I  went  over  next  day.  Well — it's 
that  little  girl."  But  Judith  has  slummed  so  many  little  girls  in 
Tallack  Street,  all  alike,  that  she  can't  recall  any  special  one.  She 
remembers  the  front  teeth  of  one  very  plainly.  Her  brother  also 
remembers  Bridgetticks — not  a  young  lady  easily  forgotten,  clearly. 
But  he  has  forgotten  her  name. 

"  Yes,  I  know  her.  So  does  Scip.  She  called  him  a  Cure.  But 
not  that  one — a  younger  child.  I  rather  think  our  mother  knows 
something  about  her."  He  leans  his  head  well  back  towards  his 
mother  in  the  next  room — sees  its  ceiling,  perhaps,  as  he  blows  his 
cigarette-smoke  straight  upwards — and  calls  to  her,  "  Madre !  " 
The  Italian  word  may  be  some  mere  family  habit,  without  reason. 
A  perceptive  guest  in  the  next  room  makes  a  mental  note  of  it  as  a 
useful  point  in  his  next  novel.  For  he  is  a  literary  celebrity. 
Lady  Arkroyd  answers :  "  Yes,  dear,  what  ? "  She  looks  quite 
round  the  high  back  of  the  chair  she  sits  in,  and  speaks  fairly 
towards  her  son.  He  continues  to  throw  his  voice  back  over  his 
head  to  her: 

"  What  was  the  name  of  the  queer  kid  that  said  her  father  was 
'an  Asker'?  You  told  us  about  her,  you  know.  ...  At  the 
school  place,  down  by  Tallack  Street.  ..." 

"I  know.     Her  father's  blind,  and  she  leads  him  about.     Be 


28  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

quiet,  and  don't  ask,  and  perhaps  I  shall  remember  the  name." 
Lady  Arkroyd  shuts  her  eyes  over  the  job  and  waits  on  Memory. 
It  may  take  time.  Her  son  decides  that  he  can  listen  just  as  well 
with  his  head  down,  and  becomes  normal.  Presently  his  mother 
reports:  "I  think  it  was  Steptoe — no! — not  Steptoe.  Eliza  Ann 
Copeland,  Adeline  Fossett's  schoolroom."  If  you  look  back  to 
where  Lizarann  made  this  lady's  acquaintance,  you  will  see  that 
there  was  underlying  method  in  the  seeming-disjointed  action  of 
her  memory. 

Her  son  replies,  "Yes — that  child";  and  adds,  "All  right — 
that'll  do,"  meaning  that  he  has  now  got  all  the  information 
wanted  for  the  moment.  So  the  perceptive  guest  infers,  and  lis- 
tens with  interest  for  the  use  he  is  going  to  make  of  it.  But  he 
loses  the  thread  of  the  conversation;  for,  just  as  he  is  going  to 
speak,  the  sister  says  to  Scipio,  "What  did  you  say  *er*  for?" — 
meaning,  why  did  you  begin  and  stop  ? 

"  The  expression,"  his  lordship  replies  with  intense  deliberation, 
"  was  an  involuntary  prefix  to  a  statement  I  was  preparing  to  make 

concerning  the  patronymic  of  the  little  girl  who "  He  stops 

dead  on  the  pronoun,  without  finishing  the  sentence;  then  con- 
tinues :  "  I  need  go  no  farther,  especially  as  I  foresee  a  fresh  con- 
firmation forming  on  the  lips  of  my  dear  friend  William  Rufus  of 
the  view  taken  of  my  personal  character  by  the  other  little-girl- 
who.  But  perhaps  Hie  name  of  the  first  little-girl-who  may  be 
taken  as  decided  on.  In  that  case  I  need  not  adduce  my  evi- 
dence." 

"  Do  shut  up,  Scip,"  is  the  comment  of  William  Rufus.  "  The 
other  little  girl  spoke  the  truth.  You  are  a  Cure — not  the  least 
doubt  of  it." 

"  What  is  a  Cure  ?  "  says  Judith.  "  I  don't  know.  But  please 
don't  shut  up ;  never  mind  Will !  What  was  it  you  were  going  to 
say?" 

"Merely  this: — When  your  intractable  brother  and  myself  vis- 
ited Tallack  Street,  having  previously  interviewed  Mr.  Illingworth, 
the  courteous  secretary  of  the  Remunerative  ..." 

"  Do  get  along,  Scip  1 "  from  Mr.  Arkroyd. 

u  My  dear  Will,  I  assure  you  that  your  impatience  only  defeats 
its  own  object.  If  you  will  balance  the  time  gained  by  skipping 
passages  in  my  statement — which  may  in  the  end  prove  essential  to 
the  context — against  the  time  lost  in  administering  verbal  stim- 
ulus to  the  speaker,  you  will  find — if  I  am  not  mistaken — that  the 
latter  exceeds  the  former." 

"  All  right,  old  chap  1    I  give  up.    Go  ahead  1 " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  29 

u  I  shall  have  to  go  and  talk  to  the  new  visitors.  You  had  bet- 
ter get  on."  These  speeches  come  simultaneously  from  his  two 
hearers;  the  last  speaker  with  her  fine  eyes  fixed  on  a  wrist- 
watch,  little  larger  than  the  iris  of  either.  Scipio  accelerates  with 
docility. 

"After  getting  the  particulars  of  the  land  and  buildings  from 
Illingworth,  we  drove  round  by  Tallack  Street  to  look  at  the  site. 
We  always  make  a  point  of  seeing  everything.  Illingworth  waa 
not  justified  in  saying  that  a  small  shed  on  the  land,  in  the  last 
stages  of  disintegration,  could  be  utilized  for  a  motor-garage  .  .  . 
but  never  mind  that !  We  are  at  present  concerned  with  the  name 
of  the  little-girl-who.  The  plummy  little  dark-eyed  one,  Will — not 
that  shrill  little  fiend.  Well! — when  we  arrived  at  Tallack  Street, 
and  could  see  nothing  the  least  resembling  a  suitable  site  for  a 
factory — or,  indeed,  anything  else — your  accomplished  brother, 
Miss  Arkroyd,  who  camnot  get  in  or  out  of  a  hansom  without  break- 
ing his  knee-caps,  urged  upon  me  the  propriety  of  descending  and 
inquiring  at  the  Robin  Hood.  The  Robin  Hood  was  congenial 
to  me — the  sort  of  pub  I  always  frequent  when  I  have  a  choice.  It 
had  a  picture  of  Robin  dressed  like  a  member  of  what  I  always 
suppose  to  be  a  benefit-club,  which  extends  to  me,  when  I  sit  at 
windows,  a  long  pole  with  a  collection-box,  suggesting  an  inversion 
of  the  way  we  fed  bears  in  our  youth.  ..."  His  hearers  become 
restive. 

"This  is  irrelevant,"  says  the  brother.  And  the  sister  looked 
again  at  her  wrist. 

"  I  am  aware  of  it.  I  will  not  detain  Miss  Arkroyd  long  at  the 
Robin  Hood.  I  will  merely  note  the  fact  that  it  had  a  water- 
trough  for  horses,  and  a  space  in  front — it  is  in  the  main  road, 
just  as  you  reach  Tallack  Street — and  that  it  is  a  House  of  Call 
for  Plasterers.  I  mention  this  in  case  ..." 

"In  case  any  of  us  should  plaster  unexpectedly?  Do  you  feel 
that  you  wish  to  plaster,  Will  ? " 

UI  might.  Sibyl  probably  will,  sooner  or  later.  Go  on,  Scip. 
.  .  .  Yes,  we  interrupted  you — admitted!  .  .  .  Now  go  on." 

"In  the  private  bar  of  the  Robin  Hood — for  it  boasts  a  public 
and  private  bar,  though  it  stops  short  of  making  parade  of  a  saloon 
bar — I  encountered  a  cobbler  drinking  a  tumblerful  of  spirits.  He 
was  becoming  a  cobblerful  of  tumblerfuls.  ..." 

"  I'm  sure  I  know  that  man,"  Judith  says,  in  brackets.  "  It  waa 
the  one  that  said  he  was  '  mine  very  truly,  Robert  Steptoe.'  Never 
mind! — go  on.  ..." 

"But  he  was  not  too  drunk  to  tell  me  that  if  I  kept  my  eyea 


30  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

open  I  should  see  a  blooming  board  at  the  end  of  the  street.  There 
wasn't  any  too  much  reading  on  it  now,  the  boys  having  aimed  at 
it  successfully  ever  since  he  came  to  Rose  Cottage — 'ouse  on  the 
right — but  he  took  it  a  board  was  always  a  board,  reading  or  no.  I 
could  see  for  myself,  by  looking.  It  warn't  trespassers;  he  knew 
that.  .  .  .  Do  not  be  impatient.  I  am  coming  to  the  gist  of  my 
communication.  .  .  .  Shortly  after  leaving  the  bar  of  the  Robin 
Hood,  I  heard  some  boys  singing  a  monotonous  chant.  A  name 
was  frequently  repeated  in  it ;  it  sounded  like : 

'  Lizarann  Coupland's 
Father  begs   for  'apence 
Just  round  the  corner 
Down  by  the  gasworks.   .   .   .' 

And  so  on  over  and  over  again.  I  inquired  of  one  small  boy 
whose  father  it  was  that  begged  for  halfpence,  but  he  turned  the 
conversation,  and  suggested  that  I  should  give  him  a  farden  kike. 
However,  another  one  repeated  the  name  gratis;  and  though  he 
was  too  young  to  be  quite  intelligible  I  was  satisfied  that  the  name 
was  Eliza  Ann  Copeland  or  Coupland." 

"  Why  couldn't  you  tell  us  that  straight  off,  Lord  Felixthorpe  ?  " 
says  Judith.  To  which  the  narrator  replies  with  a  sweet  smile, 
"  My  inherent  prolixity,  no  doubt."  She  says  absently  to  the 
wrist-watch,  "  No  doubt ! "  and  then,  looking  up  at  the  speaker, 
illogically  asks,  "  What  was  the  rest  of  the  story  ?  Go  on." 

Her  brother  protests :  "  Come,  Judith,  be  reasonable !  You're 
just  like  the  people  that  author-chap  has  been  telling  us  about 
downstairs  .  .  .  people  who  complain  that  his  books  are  too  long, 
and  then  ask  for  more.  He  says  he's  badgered  for  sequels,  and 
untold  gold  wouldn't  induce  him  to  bring  an  old  character  into  a 
new  book." 

"  He's  perfectly  right.  Anyhow,  I  am  sure  he  always  finishes  a 
story  when  he  begins  it.  I  want  the  rest  of  what  happened.  Only 
I  want  this  one  cut  short — not  too  prosy,  please!  Did  you  give 
that  little  boy  the  farthing  cake  ?  " 

"I  gave  him  a  halfpenny.  He  ignored  my  application  for 
change,  and  walked  away  hand-in-hand  with  his  friend  towards  a 
shop.  I  accompanied  the  cab  on  foot  to  the  end  of  Tallack  Street, 
where  we  found  the  blooming  board,  and  decided  on  its  illegible 
character.  But  there  was  no  doubt  the  piece  of  land  was  the  one 
Ulingworth  had  shown  us  on  the  map.  The  fictitious  motor- 
garage  was  a  place  that  could  only  have  been  a  source  of  danger  to 
rash  intruders.  We  exclaimed  together  that  there  were  no  prem- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  31 

ises,  and  the  cabman  endorsed  our  opinion.  At  this  juncture  an 
exacerbated  female  rushed  from  a  doorway  to  intercept  and 
chastise,  if  possible,  a  little  girl  about  ten  years  old,  who  had  been 
peering  at  her  through  a  window  on  the  ground-floor.  This  little 
girl  slipped  through  an  impassable  orifice  and  got  away,  shouting 
derision,  but  pursued  by  the  woman.  ..." 

"Who  was  more  than  half  afraid  of  her."  Thus  Mr.  Arkroyd 
parenthetically. 

"I  agree  with  you.  However,  she  left  her  door  open,  and  the 
little  girl,  whom  I  think  we  may  consider  to  be  identified  as  Eliza 
Ann  Coupland,  came  out  timidly,  and  sucked  a  corner  of  her  neck- 
handkerchief  in  our  immediate  neighbourhood.  She  seemed  to  re- 
gard the  clash  between  the  other  little  girl  and  her  mother  as  nor- 
mal, and  appeared  to  court  conversation  with  us.  ..." 

"  It's  not  her  mother.  It's  her  aunt.  I  know  the  people."  The 
interruption  is  Judith's.  "  But  go  on." 

"  Her  aunt.  Our  conversation  with  her  was  handicapped  by  her 
shyness;  also  by  her  objection  to  removing  the  handkerchief  from 
her  mouth.  But  she  appeared  to  be  attracted  to  us  by  a  kind  of 
fascination,  showing  itself  in  a  fixed  gaze  in  a  direction  contrary 
to  the  pull  of  the  handkerchief.  Her  aunt's  injunction  to  her  to  put 
it  out  of  her  mouth  and  answer  the  gentleman  led  the  gentleman 
to  prevail  on  the  aunt  to  withdraw.  We  then  understood  her  to 
refer  us  to  a  friend,  Bridget  Hicks,  for  local  information.  ..." 

"  Exactly.    And  Bridget  Hicks  called  you  a  Cure." 

"  That  is  so.  With  what  justice  I  am  not  in  a  position  to  say, 
without  a  more  exact  acquaintance  with  the  meaning  of  the  term. 
Bridget  Hicks  was  the  little  girl  who  had  fled  before  the  wrath  of 
the  aunt.  She  joined  her  friend  on  witnessing  the  discomfiture  of 
that  lady  by  the  tactics  of  your  accomplished  brother,  who,  I  think, 
impressed  her  as  Royalty." 

"Very  well,  then! — it  comes  to  this."  It  is  Judith  who  is  re- 
porting progress.  "  The  last  time  you  spoke  in  the  train  was  about 
a  blind  beggar  whose  little  girl  walks  him  about,  and  lives  in  that 
abominable  slum  papa  has  allowed  to  be  built  on  the  Cazenove 
estate,  where  I  sent  you  because  there  was  a  board  with  something 
about  vacant  premises  suitable  for  a  factory  on  it.  Why  couldn't 
you  say  so  at  once  ? " 

"  May  I  be  pardoned  for  suggesting,"  Scipio  replies  with  a  rein- 
forcement of  his  sententious  manner,  which  had  lapsed  slightly, 
"  that,  had  I  done  so,  a  lengthy  cross-examination  would  have  been 
necessary  to  put  my  hearers  in  possession  of  details  I  have  been 
able  to  supply." 


32  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

His  friend  seems  to  think  there  is  something  in  this.  "Just 
consider,  Judith,"  he  says.  "  If  Scip  had  cut  himself  down,  as  you 
suggest,  you  would  have  known  nothing  about  Eliza  Ann's  neck- 
handkerchief.  I  consider  that  it  speaks  volumes." 

"  Scip,  as  you  call  him,  could  have  thrown  it  in." 

And  Miss  Arkroyd,  who  is  more  tall,  impressive,  and  handsome 
than  her  mother,  collects  herself,  which  spreads  over  a  great  deal 
of  fauteuil,  to  join  the  party  in  the  other  room.  Her  brother  and 
his  friend  follow  her. 

The  house-party  in  the  room  adjoining — that  is,  the  large  draw- 
ing-room with  the  Tintoret;  perhaps  you  have  been  at  Royd,  and 
know  it? — had  been  making  a  good  deal  of  noise,  considering  the 
connection.  One  mustn't  laugh  too  loud,  if  it's  to  be  high-tension 
sweetness  and  light.  This  thought  passed  through  the  mind  of  Mr. 
Alfred  Challis,  better  known  to  the  world  as  "  Titus  Scroop,"  the 
great  Author,  who  was  one  of  the  party ;  it  was  to  him  we  referred 
as  the  perceptive  guest.  But  he  could  not  blame  himself  for  caus- 
ing any  of  the  too-loud  laughs;  because,  whenever  he  thought  of  a 
good  thing,  instead  of  speaking  it  out  as  he  used  to  do  when  he 
was  an  Accountant,  he  kept  it  to  himself  and  made  a  mental  note 
of  it  for  copy.  But  when  he  was  clear  in  his  mind,  that  a  thing 
was  not  good  enough  for  copy,  he  revealed  it;  and  then  the  com- 
pany laughed  gently  and  obligingly,  because  he  was  a  great  Author. 
He  felt  sorry  usually. 

Mrs.  Challis  wasn't  there.  Mr.  Challis  used  to  visit  at  distin- 
guished houses  alone.  But  there  was  nothing  against  her.  Dis- 
cussion of  whether  she  couldn't  be  asked  this  time  always  admitted 
that.  But  it  invariably  ended  in  a  decision  that  Mrs.  Challis  was 
an  Impossible  Person — although  Mrs.  Candour  had  made  every  in- 
quiry, and  there  was  nothing  whatever  against  her.  "  Still,"  said 
Lady  Arkroyd  to  the  Duchess  of  Rankshire,  "even  if  there  had 
been!  ..."  And  her  Grace,  predisposed  to  forgiveness  of  ante- 
cedents by  native  good-nature  and  a  flawless  record,  saw  regretfully 
that  even  then  the  lady  would  have  been  welcome,  if  only  she  had 
been  Possible.  Not  being  so,  and  being  also,  report  said,  huffy,  she 
had  never  come  to  pass  in  polite  society.  Her  husband  believed  he 
believed  she  was  just  as  happy  at  home  because  a  working  hypoth- 
esis of  life  was  de  rigueur.  She  had  certainly  been  almost  rude 
to  Lady  Arkroyd  on  the  occasion  of  a  conciliatory  visit ;  misunder- 
standing may  have  helped,  but  one  thing  is  certain — she  either  was 
not  asked  to  Royd  this  time  or  refused  the  invitation. 

As  to  other  folks,  there  were  several.  Only  it  was  not  easy  to 
say  which  was  which;  it  often  isn't  when  there  are  several.  They 


33 

have  to  be  left  alone  to  assume  identities,  and  a  certain  percentage 
succeeds.  The  balance  dies  away.  And  then  one  of  them  after- 
wards writes  a  daring  story,  or  ventilates  a  startling  theory,  or 
commits  an  interesting  murder.  And  there  he  was,  all  that  time, 
at  the  Simpkins's  garden-party  and  you  never  knew!  Were  you 
also — you  yourself — a  nonentity  some  of  the  others  were  thinking 
of  as  a  Person-at-a-Party,  et  prceterea  nihil?  And  is  one  of  them 
now  thinking  to  himself — dear  him! — was  that  little,  snuffy,  un- 
obtrusive chap  really  the  author  of  this  remarkable  work,  which 
appeals  to  the  better  side  of  my  nature,  and  has  scarcely  a  dull 
passage  from  beginning  to  end?  Meaning,  of  course — you!  And 
just  to  think! — he  lost  his  chance,  and  may  never  get  another. 
How  sorry  you  feel  for  him ! 

These  reflections  are  really  in  the  story,  because  they  were 
passing  through  the  mind  of  Mr.  Challis  while  a  lady  who  had  been 
asked  to  sing  Carpathian  Ballads  was  making  up  her  mind  which 
she  would  sing.  In  these  philosophizings  of  his — especially  the 
last  one — may  be  detected  the  disagreeable  sneering  tone  you  never 
would  have  suspected  him  of.  You  would  have  thought  him  an 
easy-going  chap — no  more.  It  was  there,  though,  and  it  affected 
his  mind  more  or  less  all  through  the  Carpathian  Ballads.  When- 
ever he  was  thrown  on  his  own  resources  for  a  few  minutes,  the 
disagreeable  sneering  tone  was  apt  to  be  audible  to  himself  in  his 
communings  with  his  innermost  soul.  On  this  occasion,  his  inner- 
most soul,  being  left  alone  with  him  for  a  short  time,  took  occasion 
to  decide  that  his  host  was  a  pompous  old  Ass.  All  these  heavy 
landed  proprietors  were  pompous  Asses,  more  or  less.  The  Woman 
— thus  it  referred  to  the  lady  of  the  house — was  more  interesting, 
of  course.  Women  were.  But  she  was  a  worldling,  and  a  Phi- 
listine at  heart,  for  all  this  pretence  of  worshipping  Art  and  Let- 
ters and  Song.  As  for  the  son,  he  gave  himself  airs;  but  it,  the 
soul,  wouldn't  say  anything  against  him  because  his  cigars  were  un- 
deniable. And  the  soul  shared  its  owner's — if,  indeed,  he  could 
call  his  soul  his  own! — appreciation  of  good  'baccy.  The  young 
Lord,  it  decided,  was  not  a  bad  sample  of  his  depraved  class — would 
find  his  level  in  Parliament  and  be  Under-Secretary  of  some- 
thing, sometime.  But  he  would  have  to  learn  to  shout  louder  and 
speak  faster.  As  for  the  two  young  women,  the  soul's  owner  had 
really  only  just  distinguished  one  from  the  other.  As  for  the 
music,  the  singer  couldn't  sing  ballads,  whatever  else  she  could 
sing.  She  was  nothing  much  to  look  at;  but  the  eldest  daughter 
had  a  fine  throat  and  shoulders.  Only  nowadays  you  never  could 
tell  how  much  was  real.  As  for  the  others,  he  hadn't  made  them 


34 

out  yet.  Lady  Arkroyd  had  been  civil  to  him  at  dinner,  certainly. 
But  then  she  had  invited  him.  He  had  a  vague  sense  that  he  was 
regarded  as  her  property,  and  that  the  others  all  shirked  responsi- 
bility on  his  account,  and  that  he  was,  in  fact,  to  them  an  out- 
sider. Anyway,  it  was  bad  form  of  the  son  and  his  friend  and' the 
pair  of  shoulders,  to  go  away  and  talk  in  the  back  room,  and  take 
no  notice  of — well! — of  himself,  for  instance.  At  which  point  his 
innermost  soul  turned  traitor — rounded  on  him,  and  accused  him 
of  allowing  his  disagreeable  sneering  tone  to  get  the  better  of  him 
— of  giving  way  to  ill-temper,  in  fact. 

Perhaps  these  presents  will  be  read  by  someone  who  has  had  a 
similar  experience  as  a  newcomer  in  a  great  house.  He  or  she 
may  also  have  found  out  that  there  is  honey  as  well  as  wormwood, 
frankincense  as  well  as  assafoetida,  to  be  met  with  in  such  a  posi- 
tion, even  as  did  Mr.  Alfred  Challis,  the  eminent  novelist. 

For,  the  Carpathian  ballads  coming  to  an  end,  that  gentleman 
found  himself  suddenly  being  apprized,  by  the  owner  of  the  shoul- 
ders, that  she  had  been  longing  for  a  word — with  so  eminent  a 
writer — all  the  evening.  And  there  was  a  question  she  was  dying 
to  ask  him.  Only  they  would  have  plenty  of  time  to  talk  about 
that  to-morrow.  When  was  his  next  book  coming  out?  .  .  .  not 
till  the  spring?  ...  oh  dear!  And  what  was  the  title?  .  .  . 
"Titus  Scroop"  always  had  such  interesting  titles.  .  .  .  What? 
Not  decided  on?  The  fine  eyes  that  went  with  the  shoulders 
seemed  surprised  at  this.  "  No  doubt,"  said  the  Author,  "  the  novel 
is  as  anxious  as  anyone  to  know  what  its  title  is  going  to  be." 
This  wasn't  worth  keeping  for  copy.  The  lady  laughed  the  laugh 
that  concedes  that  a  joke  has  been  made  or  meant,  not  the  laugh  of 
irresistible  appreciation.  What  did  that  matter?  Mr.  Challis's 
ill-humour  was  being  charmed  away.  Probably  some  student  of 
human  nature  has  noticed  that  it  is  not  very  material  that  the  flat- 
tery of  a  good-looking  woman  should  be  sincere,  provided  mankind 
gets  enough  of  it.  Mr.  Challis  suspected  that  he  was  being 
soothed,  and  "  Titus  Scroop "  spoken  of  in  inverted  commas,  as 
compensation  for  having  been  left  to  choose  between  the  company 
of  other  males  and  no  company  at  all.  But  still,  he  was  being 
soothed.  No  more  words  about  it!  Mr.  Challis  acquitted  the 
shoulders,  and  even  the  mass  of  rich  black  hair,  of  any  assistance 
from  Art;  and  when  the  party  broke  up  for  the  night,  went  to  his 
couch  contented. 

Having,  as  it  were,  obsessed  this  gentleman,  in  order  to  get  a 
clear  view  of  this  autumn's  house-party  at  Royd,  we  may  as  well 
make  further  use  of  him  and  peep  over  his  shoulder  as  he  writes 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  35 

his  first 'letter  to  his  impossible  wife  in  the  cretonne  bedroom  at  the 
end  of  the  passage  where  the  German  Baroness  saw  the  ghost — you 
know  that  story,  of  course?  Oh  dear,  what  a  lot  of  candles  one 
does  light  to  write  letters  by  in  other  people's  houses  when  one 
hasn't  got  to  pay  for  them! 

This  is  what  Mr.  Challis  is  writing  now :  ".  .  .1  like  the  talky 
chap  better  than  the  son  and  heir.  He's  a  lord.  They  neither  of 
them  take  to  me  because  I'm  not  'Varsity.  I  came  down  in  the 
train  with  them,  only  not  the  same  carriage.  I  rode  third,  of 
course;  there  were  no  seconds."  The  writer  felt  that  it  was  very 
clever  of  the  thirds  to  be  thirds  at  all  when  there  were  no  seconds, 
but  decided  not  to  write  it — as  too  subtle  for  the  intellect  of  his 
impossible  she — and  wrote  on :  "I  saw  them  playing  cards  in  a 
smoking-carriage,  and  recognized  the  son  and  heir  by  his  portrait. 
It  isn't  a  bit  like  him.  There's  a  fat  pink  politician  here,  with 
little  eyes,  who  talks  thirty -two  to  the  dozen.  His  name  is  Ramsey 
Tomes.  He  pinned  my  host  as  he  was  coming  from  the  dinner- 
table,  and  detained  him  ever  so  long.  We  heard  the  rumble  of  his 
rounded  periods  afar" — will  she  understand  that?  thought  the 
writer — "  long  after  everyone  else  had  followed  the  womankind  to 
the  drawing-room.  However,  they  came  up  in  time  for  the  music, 
and  I  heard  Mr.  Tomes  assuring  Sir  Murgatroyd  that  his  respect 
for  that  Bart  was  so  intense  that  he  would  reconsider  the  whole  of 
his  political  opinions  forthwith,  but  without  the  slightest  expecta- 
tion of  changing  one  jot  or  one  tittle  of  them."  Here  the  writer 
abstained,  consideratively,  with  his  pen  delayed,  over  the  inkstand, 
from  inditing  that  he  had  never  met  with  a  "tittle"  out  of  the 
company  of  its  invariable  jot.  That  would  be  too  deep  for  this 
wife  of  his.  He  brought  the  pen  slowly  into  the  arena  again. 
"  Sir  Murgatroyd  repeated  the  same  sentiment  in  several  different 
words.  As  for  all  the  other  people,  I  must  tell  about  them  gradu- 
ally, or  leave  them  till  I  come  home.  The  younger  daughter,  Sibyl 
— that's  how  to  spell  her  name — not  Sybil,  remember — strikes  me 
as  a  little  waspish.  Judith,  the  other,  is  a  tall,  handsome  woman, 
with  a  figure  expensive  to  dress  but  a  little  prepotente."  He  let 
this  word  stand,  having  written  it,  though  he  felt  sure  that  the  im- 
possible one's  Italian  would  not  cover  it.  He  did  not  mind  leav- 
ing her  to  choose  a  meaning  for  it;  it  franked  him  of  any  re- 
sponsibility. Then  he  thought  he  had  written  enough,  and  ended 
up:  "You  need  not  be  uneasy  about  my  neuralgia.  I  feel  better 
already  and  shall  have  a  hot  bath  first  thing  in  the  morning. — 
Your  loving  mate,  A.  C."  But  he  added  an  amends  for  an  omis- 
sion— "Kiss  the  kids  from  me." 


36  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN    • 

Then  he  betrayed  further  uneasiness  of  conscience  by  saying  to 
himself :  "  After  all,  she's  much  better  at  home  with  the  babies. 
She  would  never  get  on  among  these  people."  Whether  it  occurred 
to  the  good  gentleman  that  he  had  it  in  his  power  to  alter  the  posi- 
tion of  the  pieces  on  the  board  we  do  not  know.  If  it  did,  the  idea 
soon  vanished  behind  a  speculation  whether  the  next  guest  after 
him  would  have  a  new  acreage  of  clean  sheet  and  pillow  all  to  him- 
self;  and  if  not,  what  a  lot  of  washing  went  for  nothing!  He  al- 
most wished  he  was  a  chimney-sweep,  to  make  it  valid. 


CHAPTEK  IV 

OF  MISS  ARKROYD  AND  HER  AVIARY.  HOW  MR.  CHALLIS  WALKED  IN  THE 
GARDEN  WITH  HER.  OF  MR.  TRIPTOLEMUS  WRAXALL.  AND  OF  HOW 
MR.  CHALLIS  WROTE  TO  HIS  WIFE 

IT  is  bewildering  to  reflect  on  the  number  of  avenues  open  to 
Society  by  which  to  approach  its  own  final  perfection.  And  dis- 
appointing, too,  when  a  start  has  been  made  along  some  promising 
one,  to  come  so  soon  to  a  parting  of  the  ways,  with  never  a  sign- 
post— not  so  much  as  a  stray  uncrucified  Messiah  for  a  guide — as 
the  night  falls  over  the  land.  For  even  so,  each  last  new  Theory 
of  Perfectibility,  each  panacea  for  the  endemics  that  afflict  us, 
seems  to  pass  from  the  glory  of  its  dawn  to  the  chill  hours  of  its 
doubt;  and  its  Apostles  fall  away  and  change  their  minds,  and 
its  subscribers  discontinue  their  subscriptions,  and  it  becomes  out 
of  date.  And  those  who  have  not  lain  low,  like  Br'er  Fox,  but  have 
committed  themselves  past  all  recall  to  its  infallibility,  are  sorry 
because  they  cannot  remind  us  that  they  said  so  all  along,  only 
they  were  never  paid  the  slightest  attention  to. 

It  is  possible  that  some  such  perceptions  passed  through  Mr. 
Challis's  reflective  mind  in  the  course  of  next  day  at  Royd.  He 
began  to  find  out  that  he  was  in  a  sort  of  hornet's  nest  of  Reform- 
ers, every  one  of  them  anxious  to  point  out  avenues  of  salvation  for 
Society.  For  Sir  Murgatroyd,  who  was  the  soul  of  liberality 
towards  every  doctrine,  political,  religious,  or  social,  that  he  had 
no  prejudice  against,  liked  nothing  better  than  to  crowd  his  house 
full  of  reforming  theorists.  Was  he  not  himself  one,  and  the 
author  of  a  pamphlet  called  "The  Higher  Socialism:  An  Essay 
towards  a  Better  Understanding  of  the  Feudal  System"?  He 
therefore  welcomed  with  splendid  hospitality  every  advocate  of 
every  doctrine  that  was  undoubtedly  new,  only  two  conditions  be- 
ing complied  with.  One  was  that  if  it  was  a  New  Morality  it 
should  be  possible  to  enter  into  its  details  without  shocking — sup- 
pose we  say — a  hardened  reader  of  Laurence  Sterne ;  and  the  other 
that  it  should  not  countenance,  palliate,  advocate,  encourage,  sup- 
port, or  lend  adhesion  to  his  especial  bete  noire,  the  Americaniza- 

37 


38  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tiofl  of  our  Institutions.  On  this  particular  occasion  a  fine  bag  of 
neo-archs — how  apologize  for  such  a  word? — had  been  secured  by 
him  during  his  summer  holiday;  and  when  Mr.  Challis  made  his 
appearance  at  the  breakfast-table  next  morning,  he  was  button- 
holed away  from  its  beautiful  clean  damask  by  a  brace  of  Think- 
ers, each  anxious  to  communicate  his  Thoughts,  and,  if  possible, 
entangle  the  sympathies  of  a  powerful  pen  "  Titus  Scroop  "  was 
known  to  possess. 

It  is  annoying  to  be  interrupted  when  you  are  making  up  your 
mind  what  you'll  have;  and  then  you  take  poached  eggs  when 
you  want  filleted  plaice,  or  vice-versa.  Mr.  Challis  showed  in- 
trepidity, saying  to  a  disciple  of  the  learned  German  reformer 
Graubosch :  "  I  make  a  point  of  never  listening  to  anything  worth 
hearing  at  breakfast."  It  was  a  clever  repulse;  but  committed 
him  to  capitulation  to  Graubosch  later.  He  succeeded,  but  with  a 
like  reservation,  in  escaping  from  an  advocate  of  a  really  formi- 
dable system  of  Assurance  which  would  have  widespread  effects  on 
Society,  by  saying — as  though  the  first  few  words  of  its  exponent 
had  gone  home  to  him — "  You  and  I  must  talk  that  out  over  a  game 
of  billiards."  The  fact  is  this  gentleman  had  not  been  sufficiently 
congratulated  about  his  last  book,  so  far,  by  the  ladies  of  the 
family;  and  he  felt  a  strong  bias  towards  being  flattered  by  Miss 
Arkroyd  particularly,  although  in  his  letter  to  his  wife  he  had 
spoken  with  coldness — ostentatious,  and  he  knew  it — of  this  young 
lady's  fascinations.  So  he  was  already  scheming  in  his  heart  to  get 
her  in  a  corner  by  herself,  where  she  would  be  able  to  express  her 
wonder  at  his  insight  into  things  no  one  else — except  she  and  he, 
presumably — knew  anything  about.  He  was  perceptibly  conscious 
that  the  short  interview  between  himself  and  this  very  good- 
looking  young  lady,  the  evening  before,  had  lacked  reference  to 
his  insight,  and  that  recognition  in  that  quarter  would  be  pleasant. 

It  is  a  little  difficult  to  saunter  away  from  Thinkers  who  are 
convinced  that  you  will  be  interested  in  their  Thoughts,  especially 
if  you  have  given  any  of  them  the  right  to  begin,  "  Referring  to 
what  we  were  saying  yesterday,  etc." ;  or,  "  I  have  been  thinking 
over  that  apparent  contradiction,  etc."  But  it  can  be  done,  with 
tact.  Mr.  Challis  had  not  a  perfectly  clear  record  of  avoidance  of 
Philosophy:  his  buttonholers  of  the  morning  could  have  pleaded 
justifications.  So  he  felt  diplomatic  as  he  got  into  another  coat 
because  the  sun  was  quite  hot  in  the  garden,  and  then  came  down 
the  other  stairs,  where  he  was  sure  to  meet  nobody,  and  so  through 
the  kitchen-gardens  to  the  Inigo  Jones  orangery  that  was  now  an 
aviary.  That  was  where  Miss  Arkroyd  had  said  she  was  going — 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  39 

not  to  him,  but  to  someone  else  in  his  hearing.  So  clearly  so  that 
it  was  almost  as  good  as  if  he  hadn't  heard,  but  had  approached 
her  by  accident,  when  he  came  upon  her  out  of  a  side-avenue  of 
clipped  hedges.  By  that  time  he  was  sauntering  quite  naturally, 
with  a  cigar  in  his  mouth,  just  begun.  This  was  as  it  should  be. 

"  Have  you  seen  my  green  parroquets  ? "  said  the  lady. 

"  I  haven't  noticed  any.  Are  they  loose  in  the  garden  ? "  As 
though  they  would  have  been!  But  Mr.  Challis  wasn't  in  earnest. 

"  Not  that  I  know  of !  Did  you  see  any  ? "  She  had  taken  him 
quite  seriously,  and  he  had  to  explain. 

"  It  was  my  ill-judged  f acetiousness,"  said  he.  "  I  meant  I  had 
been  nowhere  except  in  the  garden." 

"  Oh,  I  see !  You  quite  frightened  me.  They  are  such  nice  lit- 
tle people.  Come  in  and  look  at  them."  But  Mr.  Challis  felt  that 
he  would  have  to  practise  a  certain  discretion  in  his  accustomed 
modes  of  speech,  one  of  which  was  a  perverse  gravity  over  an  ob- 
vious absurdity.  But  he  had  long  given  up  expecting  insight  into 
this  from  Marianne,  the  impossible  wife.  Why  should  he,  then, 
from  this  young  woman,  to  whom  he  and  his  ways  were  quite  a 
novelty?  Besides,  we  had  to  consider  the  individualities  of  that 
strange  creature,  the  human  Toff.  Mr.  Challis  reflected  that  ab- 
surd tropes  and  inversions,  without  a  smile,  are  the  breath  of  life 
to  cab  and  bus  men.  Perhaps  William  the  Norman  never  put  hi& 
royal  tongue  in  his  cheek :  it  may  have  been  contrary  to  the  Feudal 
System. 

The  little  parroquets  didn't  wait  for  their  proprietor  and  this 
new  gentleman  to  come  into  their  palace.  The  moment  they  heard 
them  they  came  with  a  wild  rush  into  an  outside  cage.  But,  being 
out,  they  took  no  notice  of  their  disturbers — none  whatever !  They 
conversed  about  them,  clewed  side  by  side  on  a  long  perch,  with  a 
stunning  and  unhesitating  volubility  that  made  the  brain  reel;  a 
shrill,  intolerable  prestissimo  of  demisemiquavers  on  one  note  that 
pierced  the  drum  of  the  ear  like  a  rain  of  small  steel  shot.  They 
had  come  to  so  exactly  the  same  conclusion,  so  it  seemed,  as  they 
all  repeated  it  at  once,  first  to  right,  then  to  left — had  so  precisely 
the  same  opinion  about  their  visitors,  that  it  was  hardly  necessary 
to  dwell  upon  it  so  long,  Mr.  Challis  thought. 

"  Are  they  sweet,  or  are  they  not  ?  "  was  what  his  companion  said. 

Challis  admitted  the  sweetness — or  possible  sweetness — of  their 
dispositions.  But  he  took  exception  to  their  voices.  He  would 
have  preferred  these  to  be  more  like  Cordelia's.  The  nice  little  peo- 
ple kept  up  such  a  fire  of  comment,  although  Miss  Arkroyd  was 
now  supplying  them  with  cherries,  that  Challis  could  hardly  hear 


40  '  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

what  she  was  saying.  But  he  gathered  that  it  was  eulogy  of  the  way 
in  which  he  had  referred  to  the  voice  of  Cordelia  and  King  Lear's 
•description  of  it,  in  one  of  his  novels.  Only  it  seemed  to  him  that 
she  was  putting  the  saddle  on  the  wrong  horse — ascribing  the 
passage  to  the  wrong  book,  for  she  mentioned  the  "  Spendthrift's 
Legacy,"  the  first  work  that  introduced  him  to  his  public.  As  is 
frequently  the  case,  this  book  continued  to  be  the  one  he  was  most 
connected  with  by  non-readers  of  his  works,  for  all  that  many 
more  recent  ones  had  had  a  much  larger  circulation. 

"  Are  you  sure  it  isn't  in  *  The  Epidermis '  ? "  he  asked. 
.    "What  isn't?" 

" '  Gentle  and  low,  an  excellent  thing  in  women ' — or  parrots — 
what  you  referred  to  just  now.  ..." 

"What's  'The  Epidermis'?  Who's  it  by?  I  mean— I've  seen 
it.  But  I  didn't  know  it  was  yours."  Whereat  Mr.  Challis  felt 
.crushed.  Fancy  anybody  not  knowing  whom  "  The  Epidermis  " 
was  by!  If  it  had  only  been  not  having  read  it  yet,  thai  could 
have  been  softened  by  confession  of  intense  yearning  to  do  so,  un- 
fairly frustrated  by  anemic  Circulating  Libraries.  But  not  to 
know  whom  it  was  by! 

"  Name  of  my  last  book.  Fidgetts  and  Thrills.  Six  Shillings 
net."  Mr.  Challis  affected  a  light  joking  tone.  But  he  was  morti- 
fied. However,  Miss  Arkroyd  was  under  obligation  to  invent 
something  of  a  palliative  nature,  and  in  the  effort  Cordelia's  voice 
lapsed. 

"  Oh  yes-s-s-s ! "  said  she,  dwelling  on  the  "  s  "  to  express  a  mind 
momentarily  bewildered,  but  awaiting  a  light  that  was  sure  to 
<jome,  if  she  made  the  hiss  long  enough,  and  then  cutting  sharply 
in  with  an  interruption  to  it.  "I  was  thinking  of  another  book. 
Quite  another !  "  And  then  closed  the  subject  for  good,  but  as  one 
that  might  have  been  pursued  had  she  been  thinking  of  a  book  that 
was  rather  another,  but  not  quite. 

You  see,  the  fact  was  that  this  young  woman  had  read  none  of 
this  author's  works,  though  it  seemed  she  yearned  to  do  so.  She 
had  had  no  time  for  reading,  and  the  book  had  always  got  sent  back 
to  Mudie's  before  she  had  read  it,  and  so  on.  Well! — we  can  all 
sympathize,  can't  we?  But,  then,  she  shouldn't  have  pretended 
she  had,  because  that  was  fibs.  At  most  she  had  read  a  quotation 
from  one  of  his  stories — she  couldn't  say  which — in  a  review. 

Mr.  Challis  suspected  all  this,  and  was  too  much  a  man  of  the 
world  to  commit  the  blunder  of  proving  that  a  lady  had  told  fibs, 
however  insignificant.  He  was  rather  glad  the  little  green  birds 
kept  in  such  good  voice,  for  though  they  usually  dropped  their 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  41 

cherries  and  wanted  another,  they  never  dropped  their  subject. 
They  helped  the  position,  and  Challis  felt  he  ought  to  help,  too. 
His  vanity  was  a  little  wounded;  but,  then,  how  jolly  comfortable 
that  bed  was,  and  what  a  lovely  cold  douche  that  was  after  a  real 
hot  bath  and  what  a  choice  cigar  this  was,  just  recently  supplied  by 
this  lady's  brother !  No ! — he  would  be  generous,  and  help. 

"How  charmingly  your  sister  draws!  I  was  looking  at  her 
landscapes  last  night." 

"  She's  Prong's  favourite  pupil." 

"She's  very  clever?" 

"  Oh  yes ! — she  can  do  anything  she  turns  her  hands  to.  We 
differ  on  many  points.  But  it's  impossible  to  deny  her  cleverness. 
Poor  Sibyl ! — I  suppose  she  can't  help  it." 

"  Can't  help  what  ? " 

"  Well ! — rubbing  me  up  the  wrong  way.  But  we  all  do  that." 
Challis  began  to  feel  that  he  was  in  the  bosom  of  the  Family. 
He  might  ask  questions  freely,  and  did  so  as  soon  as  the  quiet  of  a 
retired  walk  in  the  garden  allowed  freedom  of  speech.  The  par- 
roquets  dropped  the  subject  abruptly  as  soon  as  they  found  them- 
selves alone. 

"  What's  the  Great  Idea  ?  I  heard  Lady  Arkroyd  talking  of  it 
to  Lord  Felixthorpe.  It  was  her  idea,  wasn't  it  ?  " 

"  Do  you  mean  Mamma's  ?  "  Judith  asked.  Mr.  Challis  had  not, 
and  hesitated  a  moment.  Should  he  say,  "  Miss  Sibyl's  "  ?  Surely 
no !  Sunday  citizens  would  say  that.  Very  well,  then !  Should 
it  be  "  Sibyl's  "  or  "  Your  sister's  "  ?  He  almost  wished  the  young 
females  of  this  landed  family  were  ladyships;  it  comes  so  much 
handier  for  outsiders.  He  risked  the  point,  and  said,  "  Sibyl's," 
but  softened  the  offence  by  adding,  "  Your  sister's,  I  mean."  If 
the  fine  eyelids  were  offended,  they  concealed  it  remarkably  well. 
So  much  so  that  Mr.  Challis  said  to  himself  that  no  doubt  the 
Normans  Christian-named  more  than  the  Saxons.  Or,  were 
those  eyelids  lenient  towards  his  personal  self?  He  was  a  mar- 
ried man,  certainly;  only,  then! — a  married  man  may  feel  flat-, 
tered,  look  you!  But  this  is  not  our  affair  at  present.  How 
about  the  Great  Idea  ? 

"  Sibyl's  idea,  of  course."  The  speaker  accepted  the  Christian 
name ;  she  could  have  said  "  My  sister's  "  stiffly.  "  It's  a  perfectly 
mad  one.  A  sort  of  new  Factory,  or  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  In- 
stitution. Everything  is  to  be  made  there,  only  nobody  is  to  be 
allowed  to  work  there  who  is  qualified  to  do  anything  else." 

"  Anything  else  than  what  ? " 

"Why — don't  you  understand?    Arts  and  crafts.    Enamels  and 


42  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lace  and  tapestry  and  hammered  brass  and  copper.  Not  manufac 
tures — mediaeval  things.  ..." 

"Oh,  ah!— I  know." 

"  All  that  sort  of  thing.  Well ! — the  Great  Idea  is  to  take  eithei 
some  premises  of  the  proper  sort,  or  a  piece  of  land  and  build  £ 
Factory,  with  studios  for  herself  and  Lady  Betty  Inglis;  she  musl 
be  in  it  to  make  Sir  Spender  Inglis,  who's  enormously  rich,  find 
half  the  capital.  I've  done  my  best  ...  to  prevent  it.  But  it's 
no  use  my  saying  anything.  Will  keeps  her  up  to  it." 

"Your  brother?" 

"  Yes.  You  see,  he's  been  looking  into  the  question  of  building, 
and  is  certain  he  could  build  at  half  the  usual  cost.  So  he  wants 
to  try  his  hand  on  the  Factory." 

"Poor  Sir  Spender!" 

"  That's  what  I  say.  And  poor  Papa !  However,  that's  not 
Will's  only  reason.  He  wants  to  build  some  workshops  for  him- 
self to  carry  out  experiments  in  wireless  high-tension  currents  and 
aerostation.  /  don't  understand  these  things." 

"  Your  brother  seems  a  universal  genius,  too  ? " 

"  Yes.  But  then,  he  took  a  very  high  degree  at  Cambridge.  He 
always  has  that  excuse.  Sibyl  has  no  degree,  and  ought  to  know 
better." 

"  What  exactly  is  going  to  be  done  at  the  Factory  ?  And  are  all 
the  hands  to  be  ladies  ?  Or  how  ? " 

"  Very  much  '  how  ? '  I  should  say.  The  idea  is,  to  employ  no 
one  who  can  do  anything  else  anywhere  else.  People  with  one  hand 
or  one  eye.  Colour-blind  guards  who  can't  get  places  on  railways. 
Deaf  and  dumb  people  that  can  read  the  Scriptures  aloud  auto- 
matically and  never  be  any  the  wiser,  don't  you  know  ? " 

"  Was  that  what  your  brother  was  talking  about  to  your  sister  " 
— in  this  exact  context  "  Sibyl "  would  hardly  have  worked  in — 
"  last  night  ?  About  a  blind  chap  he  told  her  of.  She  thought  he 
might  be  taught  to  model." 

"  Did  they  talk  about  him  ?  I  didn't  hear  them.  A  blind  beg- 
gar-man in  a  street  where  I  slum — sells  matches,  or  pretends  to. 
They  won't  get  him  to  work  for  ten  shillings  a  week." 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  he's  earning  ten  shillings  a  day,  probably,  and  putting 
by  money.  They  do.  Isn't  that  somebody  calling  me?  .  .  . 
Yes.  .  .  .  I'm  coming." 

And  then  the  young  lady,  with  a  parting  benediction  to  her 
hearer  for  the  amusing  talk  they  had  had,  vanished  in  response  to 
gome  summons  which  she  had  distinguished  as  intended  for  herself. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  43 

He  for  his  part  thought  it  necessary  to  propose  to  himself,  and 
to  carry  unanimously,  a  vote  of  confidence  in  the  great  advantage 
to  the  brain  it  was  to  get  away  from  one's  surroundings  now  and 
again,  and  get  a  complete  change.  He  had  the  hypocrisy  to  add 
that  the  said  surroundings  stood  to  derive  benefit  also,  in  ways 
not  precisely  specified.  He  felt  stimulated  and  braced,  confirmed 
in  the  image  he  treasured  of  his  own  identity.  His  interview  with 
Miss  Arkroyd  had  been  like  having  the  hair  of  his  soul  brushed  by 
machinery,  and  called  for  classification.  It  was  necessary  to  pro- 
test against  a  remark  something  somewhere  had  made,  that  his 
own  home  need  not  suffer  by  contrast.  He  indignantly  repudiated 
the  necessity  for  discussing  the  matter,  as  he  threw  away  a  cigar 
he  had  taken  some  time  to  smoke. 

Still,  he  did  not  feel  so  sure  on  the  point  as  not  to  be  glad  to  be 
finally  pinioned  by  a  gentleman  with  a  theory,  whom  he  had 
provisionally  escaped  from  at  breakfast,  an  hour  before.  This  was 
Mr.  Triptolemus  Wraxall,  the  Apostle  of  Universal  Security,  whose 
belief  that  policies  and  premiums  were  remedies  for  all  this  world's 
evils  had  taken  possession  of  him  while  discharging  the  duties  of 
visiting  inspector  to  a  Fire  Insurance  Office.  In  the  intervals  of 
his  inspections,  the  object  of  which  was  to  detect  risks  of  fire  in 
order  that  no  policies  should  be  issued  where  any  such  risks  existed, 
he  had  evolved  from  his  inner  consciousness  a  number  of  systems, 
all  practicable  in  the  highest  degree — almost  self-acting,  in  fact. 
At  least,  they  were  none  of  them  foolish,  like  the  Rejected  Pro- 
posal Insurance  (Matrimony),  which  we  believe  fell  through  in 
consequence  of  the  dishonest  connivance  of  the  parties,  renewed 
proposals  being  frequently  accepted  within  twenty-four  hours  of 
the  payment  of  the  sum  assured.  It  was  even  reported  that 
young  ladies  had  advanced  the  first  year's  premium  in  some  cases, 
in  return  for  a  commission  of  seventy-five  per  cent,  at  settlement; 
and  that  the  Office  was  dissuaded  with  difficulty  by  its  solicitors 
from  commencing  proceedings  for  conspiracy.  An  absurd  scheme ! 

The  scheme  Mr.  Wraxall  was  anxious  to  lay  before  Mr.  Challis 
was  at  least  (said  its  inventor)  worthy  of  serious  consideration.  It 
was  a  simple  System  of  Assurance  in  which  unborn  legitimate  male 
children  would,  by  payment  of  a  premium,  secure  to  themselves 
the  full  advantages  of  a  University  education.  Of  course,  he  did 
not  rely  on  their  personal  application — that  was  to  be  done  on  their 
behalf  by  their  proposed  parents — but  it  was  not  only  ladies  and 
gentlemen  who  had  substantial  guarantees  for  the  appearance  of 
these  undergraduates,  but  any  lady  and  gentleman  whatever  vtere 
to  be  at  liberty  to  take  out  Policies  of  Assurance,  the  premiums 


44  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

• 

getting  less  and  less  in  proportion  as  the  improbability  of  the 
couple  ever  having  lawful  issue  became  greater  and  greater.  The 
modest  sum  of  fifty  pounds  was  to  cover  a  claim  for  the  possible 
son  of  an  engaged  couple  (as  bashfully  alluded  to  in  marriage  set- 
tlements) ;  while  a  full  hundred  was  required  for  an  infant  of 
unknown  sex  awaiting  advertisement  in  the  birth  column  of  the 
Times.  On  the  other  hand,  where  there  was  very  little  chance  of 
the  courtship  having  a  successful  issue  (as  in  the  case  of  extreme 
youth  of  the  parties)  the  premium  went  down  contemptuously  to  a 
sovereign.  Children  in  arms  betrothed  by  their  parents  were  to 
enjoy  all  the  advantages  of  the  institution  for  two  shillings  and  six- 
pence. But  the  lowest  figure  on  the  list,  nine  decimal  point  ought- 
six  pence,  was  the  sum  for  which  any  married  gentleman  could 
secure  its  benefits  for  the  not  necessarily  impossible  son,  born  in 
lawful  wedlock  of  himself  and  any  lady,  also  married  elsewhere, 
provided  that  the  couple  were  of  different  nationalities  and  each 
resident  at  home.  It  was  thought  necessary,  said  Mr.  Wraxall,  to 
bar  cases  of  murder  by  the  policy-holder,  of  whichever  sex. 

"  I  can't  see  the  necessity,"  said  Challis.  "  The  Office  could  not 
refuse  to  carry  out  the  bargain  because  of  suspicion  of  murder; 
and  in  case  of  conviction  the  chance  of  a  family  goes  down  to  al- 
most nil,  because  of  the  hanging.  See  ? " 

"  Quite  so,  as  a  rule.  But  cases  might  occur  of  conviction  and 
hanging  deferred  for  months,  even  years.  It  might  even  happen 
that  an  insured  son  had  become  a  beneficiare  to  the  extent  of  a 
complete  University  education  before  either  of  his  parents  was  ar- 
rested for  murder.  Such  an  event  would  have  to  be  provided 
against,  or  due  allowance  made  in  fixing  the  amount  of  the 
premium.  But  without  going  so  far  as  that,  we  should  meet  with 
instances  of  murderers  under  this  arrangement  getting  married 
while  out  on  bail.  A  posthumous  son  could  not  be  fairly  branded 
as  illegitimate  because  his  father  was  hanged  and  his  mother 
sentenced  to  penal  servitude  before  his  birth.  Holy  Matrimony  is 
all  that  legitimacy  demands." 

"Couldn't  you  raise  the  premium,  so  as  to  cover  all  possible 
cases?  Distaste  for  murder,  on  its  merits,  would  tend  to  keep 
the  number  low.  Make  it  eighteenpence." 

"  Pardon  me,  Mr.  Challis,  you  do  not  understand  Human  Nature. 
The  passing  from  pence  to  shillings  marks  a  crucial  point  of  its 
susceptibilities.  For  one  man  who  will  go  over  a  shilling  to  pro- 
vide against  a  defined  contingency  you  will  meet  with  a  million 
who  will  invest  pence  on  some  chance  they  almost  deny  the  ex- 
istence of,  simply  because,  if  it  did  come  to  pass,  the  benefit 


^IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  45 

would  be  so  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  sum  risked  to  obtain  it.  If 
an  investment  of  one  halfpenny  could  be  shown  to  connect  itself 
with  a  possible  gain  of  ten  million  pounds,  the  whole  population 
of  the  world  would  plunge  to  that  extent.  There  can  be  no  rea- 
sonable doubt  that,  however  improbable  it  may  seem  to  any  married 
man  that  he  should  marry  the  widow  of  a  particular  foreigner, 
quite  unknown,  still,  the  advantage  of  having  their  son's  education 
provided  at  a  cost  of  nine  point-ought-six  pence  would  be  an  ir- 
resistible argument  in  favour  of  its  outlay.  Nothing  short  of 
mathematical  certainty  that  no  such  son  was  possible  would  ..." 

"  I  understand  perfectly.  That  is  my  own  view.  I  draw  the 
line  at  a  shilling.  To  go  beyond  it  opens  up  a  world  of  immoral 
extravagance.  ..."  The  speaker  felt  in  danger  of  yawning, 
and,  to  avoid  it  and  break  loose  from  his  persecutor,  had  to  fall 
back  on  the  time-honoured  expedient  of  inventing  a  neglected  duty 
elsewhere.  He  drew  his  watch  suddenly  from  its  pocket  with  the 
verve  of  an  angler  landing  a  fish,  and  exclaimed  with  sudden  deep 
conviction :  "  I  really  must  run !  " 

And  Mr.  Alfred  Challis  ran,  and  found  that  letters  for  the  Post 
had  to  be  ready  at  eleven  forty-five.  He  had  come  away  from  home 
with  the  best  intentions  of  writing  a  line  every  day  to  his  wife, 
and,  indeed,  had  meant  to  write  long  humorous  letters  with  satiri- 
cal descriptions  of  the  British  Toff  at  Home,  all  the  points  of  which 
would  make  good  copy  after,  as  it  was  only  Marianne.  It  wasn't 
like  repeating  a  published  article.  But  this  time  it  would  have  to 
be  a  line,  or  at  most  a  sheet  of  note-paper ;  and  it  was  accordingly. 

When  one  has  arrived  at  the  time  of  life  when  one  weighs  before- 
hand each  sentence  one  writes,  even  to  an  intimate  friend — instead 
of  dashing  recklessly  on,  as  in  one's  glorious  youth — how  glad  one 
sometimes  is  to  be  put  under  compulsion  about  the  contents  of  a 
letter !  Challis  wouldn't  acknowledge  his  obligation  to  the  coercion 
of  the  Postal  limit — not  he!  But  he  felt  it  all  the  same.  For  he 
couldn't  have  filled  out  his  letter  with  Universal  Security.  Mari- 
anne wouldn't  have  understood  a  word  of  it.  It  wasn't  her  line. 
And  as  for  his  long  talk  with  Judith  Arkroyd  .  .  .  well,  now! — 
why  on  earth  couldn't  he  just  write  that  he  had  had  one,  and  that 
she  had  told  him  a  lot  about  the  family,  and  he  would  write  a  long 
letter  about  it  next  time,  but  really  this  was  only  a  line  to  catch  the 
Post.  Why  not,  indeed  ?  Yes,  of  course,  that  was  the  proper  thing 
to  write.  He  wrote  it,  and  denied  the  pause,  to  his  own  satisfac- 
tion. But  he  was  grateful  to  the  Post  for  being  so  coercive  and 
superseding  and  cancelling  all  considerations  of — of  what  ?  He  de- 
nied that  there  was  anything  to  cancel,  and  directed  the  letter. 


CHAPTER  V 

OF  A  RAINY  DAY  AT  ROYD.  HOW  A  MOTOR-CAR  CAME  TO  GRIEF.  HOW 
MISS  ARKROYD'S  MOTHER  WENT  TO  THANES  CASTLE  AND  SHE  HERSELF 
DIDN'T 

A  LITTLE  bit  of  duty  done  always  seems  at  its  best  when  it  has 
taken  the  form  of  a  written  letter.  Because  when  the  time  comes 
for  posting,  whatever  the  letter  may  contain — whether  it  be  a  lame 
apology  for  breaking  an  engagement,  or  a  promise  to  send  a  cheque 
without  fail  next  week — the  penny  stamp  and  the  direction  are  just 
the  same  as  if  it  had  been  to  reproach  Angela  for  not  appearing 
yesterday  at  church-parade  in  Hyde  Park,  or  had  enclosed  a  final 
discharge  of  your  tailor's  account.  So  Mr.  Challis's  rather  per- 
functory line  to  catch  the  Post,  boldly  stamped  and  directed,  quite 
set  his  mind  at  ease  about  his  home  obligations  as  soon  as  ever 
it  was  licked  and  stuck  to,  past  recall. 

In  fact,  so  relieved  was  his  conscience,  after  he  had  handed 
this  letter  to  Elphinstone  the  butler  to  see  that  it  went  to  the 
Post  for  him,  that  he  felt  quite  at  liberty  to  enjoy  some  more 
soul-brush  the  next  time  the  chance  came.  All  the  more  from  a 
conviction  of  the  importance  of  its  contents  conveyed  by  the  pro- 
fessional manner  of  Mr.  Elphinstone's  reception  of  it — a  manner 
that  said,  "This  really  important  letter  shall  go,  whatever  other 
don't !  "  If  this  enjoyment  of  the  soul-brush  became  too  oppressive 
to  his  conscience,  he  could  square  accounts  by  an  extra  sheet  or  so 
of  letter-paper. 

Anyhow,  he  could  now  live  for  the  present.  He  was  rather 
disgusted  to  find  that,  whatever  he  decided  on  to  enjoy  next,  it 
would  have  to  be  in  the  house,  unless  he  was  prepared  to  get  wet 
out  of  doors.  For,  taking  a  mean  advantage  of  him  while  he  was 
writing  his  short  letter,  it  had  come  on  to  rain. 

In  a  country-house,  when  it  comes  on  to  rain  after  a  fine  early 
morning,  despair  settles  on  the  household,  which  wanders  about 
moaning,  and  looking  for  someone  to  come  and  have  a  game  at 
billiards;  or  lamenting  the  cruel  fate  which  has  beguiled  it  into 
putting  its  things  on,  and  now  it  supposes  that  it  had  better  go  and 

46 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  47 

take  them  off  again  and  settle  down  to  something,  because  it's  go- 
ing to  pour;  or  asking  what  was  the  name  of  that  capital  game  we 
played  every  day  at  Fen  Grange,  for  instance,  when  it  rained  for 
three  weeks  on  end,  and  nobody  was  the  least  bored.  It  is  in  sad 
hours  such  as  this  that  you  seek  for  a  chess-opponent  and  find  none, 
except  a  class  of  player  that  knows  the  moves,  whom  you  fly  from 
candidly;  and  then,  if  fortunate,  you  may  meet  with  one  of  an- 
other class,  who  has  forgotten  the  openings.  Secure  him,  but  don't 
let  him  set  you  an  interesting  problem  and  run  away. 

"I've  never  played,  but  I  should  like  to  learn.  Only  I  really 
don't  know  where  the  men  are.  Nobody  plays  here,  you  see,  and 
they  get  lost  or  hidden  in  cupboards."  Thus  Judith  in  the  second 
hour  of  a  steady  downpour  to  Mr.  Challis's  inquiry,  for  he  was 
always  ready  for  a  game  at  chess,  without  being  keen  about  it. 

"  You  are  not  getting  on  with  your  book,  anyhow ! "  said  he. 
"  Can't  I  hunt  about  for  the  chessmen  till  I  find  them  ? "  The 
book  was  one  he  had  recommended  at  the  first  coming  of  the  rain, 
and  it  was  when  it  was  closed  in  despair  that  Challis  asked  his 
question. 

"  I  think  we  must  ask  Elphinstone.  Would  you  ring?  "  Challis 
rang,  and  a  sub.  who  appeared  was  instructed  to  consult  Mr.  Elphin- 
stone. Judith  continued :  "  No ! — I  hate  sinners  who  are  touched 
by  the  Dies  Irce  in  a  cathedral  and  repent ;  especially  when  they've 
got  too  old  to  do  any  real  mischief.  I  would  sooner  they  went  to 
the  Devil  honestly.  ..."  And  so  the  chat  ran  on,  Challis  cor- 
dially concurring,  and  not  hinting  at  any  joy  whatever  over  the 
sinner  that  repenteth,  until  the  young  man  Samuel  came  back  with 
chessmen.  There  was  another  set,  of  ivory,  it  appeared,  but  Mr. 
Elphinstone  had  desired  Samuel  to  say  that  a  prawn  was  defective, 
and  one  of  the  bishops  was  out  of  his  socket,  and  couldn't  be  got  to 
screw  in.  Samuel  had  been  put  to  it  to  charge  his  memory  with 
this  obscure  message;  he  was  confident  about  the  prawn,  but  had 
misgiving  about  the  bishop — feared  it  was  disrespectful  to  the 
Church  perhaps;  but  went  away  relieved  when  nothing  explosive 
came  of  it.  His  situation  was  safe. 

Many  of  us  know  that  teacju»g^chess  is  no  sinecure.  The 
alumnus  who  refusesto^aeCeptthe  rules  as  they  stand;  who  wants 
to  know  why  the  pawns  may  not  move  backwards;  why  the  pieces 
may  not  jump  over,  like  in  draughts;  why  the  queen  should  have 
such  absurd  latitude ;  who  thinks  all  the  black  pieces  should  remain 
on  the  black  squares,  and  per  contra — how  well  we  know  him! 
And  the  difficulty  a  peculiar  class  of  intellect  has  in  mastering  the 
knight's  move,  condemning  it  on  its  merits,  as  too  much  like 


48  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

squinting,  or  italics !  And  another  yet,  which,  on  being  shown  how 
to  make  a  particular  move,  makes  it,  and  says  contentiously :  "  Well ! 
— I  don't  see  anything  so  very  clever  in  that." 

Miss  Arkroyd  did  not  quite  do  any  of  these  things,  but  she  was 
nearly  as  bad.  She  remembered  the  moves,  in  the  abstract,  but 
forgot  which  of  the  pieces  made  them;  and  this  answered  as  well 
as  forgetting  the  moves  for  all  purposes  of  confusion.  With  so 
beautiful  a  hand  it  couldn't  matter  how  much  she  fingered  the 
pieces.  And  Mr.  Challis  seemed  very  contented.  The  instruction 
was  a  farce,  but  it  served  its  turn,  and  a  sort  of  appearance  of  a 
game  developed  while  the  rain  outside  came  steadily  down,  and 
checkmated  everyone  in  the  house.  Desultory  chat,  in  which  the 
question,  "Whose  move  is  it?"  frequently  occurred,  helped  Challis 
to  a  further  insight  into  family  conditions  and  local  history.  En 
revanche  the  young  lady  added  to  her  impressions  of  Challis's  own 
domestic  circumstances  and  his  literary  career,  and  found  that  an 
image  was  forming  in  her  mind  of  Mrs.  Challis.  It  wasn't  a  beau- 
tiful image,  but  it  was  worthy.  It  was  that  of  a  good  soul.  But 
not  a  good  sort  of  body — nothing  so  bad  as  that !  She  felt  glad,  for 
Challis's  sake.  A  good  soul  and  the  best  of  wives;  that  kind  of 
thing!  You  couldn't  expect  education  of  very  finished  achieve- 
ment in  those  sort  of  people,  in  the  class  she  came  from.  For  Miss 
Arkroyd  had  got  somehow  a  perfectly  clear  impression  of  a  class 
undefinable,  but  homogeneous  and  recognizable  by  symptoms.  A 
class  that  didn't  dress  for  dinner,  a  class  that  liked  potatoes  in  their 
skins  as  a  palliative  to  cold  moist  roast  mutton  d'  obbligo;  and  did 
not  condemn,  but  merely  looked  coldly  on,  at  menu's  and  finger- 
glasses.  A  class  whose  males  smoked  pipes  and  whose  females  re- 
fused cigarettes ;  which,  though  its  young  learned  French  at  school, 
condemned  France  as  the  most  salient  foreign  incident  on  an  in- 
corrigibly foreign  Continent,  and  a  perfect  moral  plague-spot  of 
unfaithful  wives  and  husbands. 

But  however  good  a  soul  this  man's  wife  was,  Judith  caught 
herself  being  sorry  for  him.  Yesterday  evening,  when  she  went 
good-naturedly  to  him,  as  to  her  mother's  latest  discovery,  just 
to  say  a  few  words  and  prevent  his  getting  left  out  in  the  cold, 
he  had  seemed  to  her  only  moderately  interesting,  and  far  from 
handsome.  Now  she  began  with  a  discriminating  eye  to  see  that, 
though  he  was  far  from  handsome,  he  was  just  as  far  from  ugly. 
Still,  she  perceived  that  it  did  credit  to  her  discriminating  eye  to 
find  this  out.  She  hadn't  noticed  it  so  much  when  he  turned  up 
unexpectedly  in  the  garden  in  the  morning — unexpectedly,  because 
she  was  really  unconscious  of  having  said  in  his  hearing  that  she 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  49 

was  going  across  the  lawn  to  feed  her  birds.  But  now,  in  a  lucky 
half-light  in  the  red  drawing-room,  with  his  eyes  dropped  on  the 
chess-board,  his  forehead  and  eye-framing  had  a  look  about  them 
that  was  certainly  interesting,  if  not  a  good  substitute  for  beauty. 
Judith  would  have  preferred  the  beauty,  certainly;  but  she  could 
look  contentedly  at  the  good  soul's  property,  and  go  on  wondering 
what  she  was  like,  while  he  considered  knotty  points  connected  with 
the  game. 

"  You've  put  your  king  in  check,  Miss  Arkroyd.  You  mustn't 
do  that."  He  looked  up  suddenly  and  caught  her  eyes.  Her 
rapport  with  the  game  saved  him  from  his  vanity  by  good  luck. 
"  I  see  you  thought  you  had  caught  me,"  was  his  interpretation 
of  her  gaze.  It  was  in  token  of  a  supposed  triumph,  so  he  thought. 
Whatever  it  was,  it  became  disconcerted. 

"  Oh ! — mustn't  I  do  that  ?  I  think  it  oughtn't  to  count,  when 
one  does  it  oneself.  Don't  you  ? "  Challis  said  to  himself  that 
this  woman  was  rather  a  goose.  Why  he  felt  a  little  disappointed 
at  her  being  rather  a  goose  he  could  not  have  said  off-hand.  He 
apologized  for  the  stupidity  of  the  laws  of  games  generally;  said 
they  were  clearly  wrong  all  round.  But  it  would  make  such  a  lot 
of  fuss  to  alter  them  now  that  he  doubted  if  it  was  worth  it. 

"  You're  not  in  earnest,  Mr.  Challis  ? "  So  the  lady  spoke,  and 
Challis  said  to  himself  that  Marianne  would  never  have  found 
that  out.  "  Sharp,  by  comparison !  "  was  his  comment  to  himself ; 
and  then  aloud :  "  But  I  can't  have  you  bored,  Miss  Arkroyd.  You 
don't  care  about  this."  To  which  Judith  replied :  "  It's  not  ex- 
citing, so  far;"  and  both  laughed.  The  discovery  that  each  had 
been  thinking  the  same  thing  was  full  of  conductivities.  It  im- 
proved their  footing. 

"  It  can't  be,  you  know,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,"  said  he, 
pushing  his  chair  expressively  three  inches  back — an  expression 
of  renunciation — with  a  slight  boredom-admitting  stretch. 
"  Chess  requires  apprenticeship  before  it  can  be  enjoyed,  like 
smoking." 

"  I  see.  And  this  game  has  made  me  sick,  like  a  boy's  first 
cigar.  Why  didn't  you  tell  me  ?  " 

"  One  must  begin  some  time.  .  .  .  Well  1  I  don't  know 
either.  Must  one?  ..." 

"  There  was  nothing  else  to  do." 

"  We  might  have  gone  into  the  billiard-room  and  heard  politics. 
I  heard  them  going  on  through  the  door  a  little  while  ago.  Mr. 
.  .  .  what's  his  name? — the  politician  ..." 

«Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes?" 


50 

"  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes.  I  gathered  that  he  was  giving  details  of 
his  great  scheme  of  Reciprocal  Interdependent  Taxation  of  Im- 
ports— what  he  touched  upon  at  dinner  last  night.  ..." 

"  Don't  let  me  disturb  the  chess ! "  says  a  passer  through  the 
room.  It  is  Lady  Arkroyd  with  an  armful  of  some  form  of  em- 
broidery which  no  one  is  on  any  account  to  assist  her  in  carrying 
to  the  drawing-room  beyond.  But  what  she  means  is,  "  Don't  ar- 
rest my  progress.  Mind  your  own  business."  Challis  makes  a 
convulsive  suggestion  of  willingness  to  assist  the  Universe,  but 
doesn't  mean  anything  at  all  by  it;  and  her  ladyship  floats  away, 
leaving  him  normal.  But  his  plunge,  overdone  from  dramatic 
motives,  has  knocked  the  board  over.  The  Fates  seem  to  league 
together  to  throw  cold  water  on  this  ill-starred  game.  Judith 
conveys  the  fact  by  a  shrug,  but  adds  a  smile,  that  it  may  be  un- 
derstood there  is  no  amertume  in  the  situation.  Further,  she 
says  she  can  hear  Tea.  A  sense  that  Life's  problem  is  solved  for 
the  moment  mixes  with  a  consciousness  of  hairbrush-time  come 
again,  and  Mr.  Challis  disperses  to  reassemble  presently  and  en- 
joy it. 

How  it  is  pouring,  to  be  sure !  And  how  grateful  one  feels  to  it 
—abstraction  though  it  be — for  doing  it  in  earnest,  and  making 
an  end  of  all  doubts  whether  we  may  not  get  out  for  a  turn  later. 
Nobody  is  going  to  do  that  to-day. 

Challis  encounters  young  Lord  Eelixthorpe  on  the  stairs,  coming 
from  the  billiard-room.  He  is  always  amiable  and  well-mannered, 
this  young  nobleman,  and  manages  to  make  everyone  think  he  has 
their  good  opinion  of  him  at  heart.  But  he  often  seems  to  be 
seeking  their  sympathy  with  his  derision  of  someone  else.  Or  of 
himself,  for  that  matter — so  Challis  goes  on  thinking,  for  all  this 
is  what  passes  in  his  mind;  the  story  does  not  vouch. for  its  truth. 
During  their  slow  ascent  of  the  great  staircase  together,  he  is  more 
than  half-convinced  that  the  young  toff  really  cares  about  his  views 
on  motoring. 

"  I  am  quite  aware,"  says  his  lordship,  pausing  at  a  corner,  as 
though  one  might  go  upstairs  at  any  slowness,  even  with  the 
young  man  Samuel  and  a  colleague  agglomerating  gilded  porcelain 
within  hearing  as  tea-factors.  "  I  am  quite  aware,  my  dear  Mr. 
'  Challis,  that  the  motor-car  is  at  present  an  object  of  execration  to 
the  public.  But  I  sympathize  so  keenly  that  I  feel  bound  to  spend 
as  much  time  as  possible  in  the  only  place  in  which  I  am  not 
tempted  to  forget  myself  and  use  bad  language  against  motorists. 
I  refer  to  the  motor-car  itself.  Believe  me  that  the  only  thing  that 
can  reconcile  a  well-constituted  mind  to  any  practice  essentially 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  51 

damnable  is  the  practice  itself.  I  shall  look  forward  to  your  ac- 
companying me  in  my  Panhard,  after  a  profusion  of  curses  per- 
fectly reasonably  directed  against  it — in  which  you  will  have  my 
sincerest  sympathy." 

"  When  do  you  expect  the  detestable  contrivance — I  make  no 
disguises,  you  see — to  arrive?  I  shall  be  here  for  a  week,  if  my 
hosts  continue  to  tolerate  me." 

"  It  ought  to  be  here  now.  From  the  fact  that  it  is  not  here 
now,  I  am  led  to  infer  that  something  has  happened.  In  this 
cautious  expression  yoii  will  kindly  observe  that  it  includes  the 
possibility  that  my  chauffeur,  Louis  Rossier,  has  got  drunk  on  the 
road,  and  has  stopped  the  night  at  an  inn  to  become  sober." 

"  Or  he  may  have  been  poisoned  by  petroleum." 

"Yes,  or  his  head  may  have  been  cut  off  by  a  police-wire, 
stretched  across  the  road  in  the  dark.  But  in  that  case  I  fancy 
we  should  have  heard." 

When  Challis  descended  the  stairs,  he  paused  to  look  out  at  the 
great  window  with  the  quarried  grisaille  and  armorial  bearings  in 
each  light,  and  saw  through  a  quarry  temporarily  repaired  with 
common  window-glass  a  clear  view  of  the  approach  to  the  house, 
dutifully  draining  off  the  deluge  that  continued  to  fall  steadily — 
steadily — on  the  gravel  road  the  great  beech  avenue  took  such  care 
of,  standing  on  each  side  of  it  all  the  way  to  just  this  side  of  tihe 
Lodge.  How  well  he  knew  what  that  soaked  gravel  would  have 
to  say  to  the  pedestrian  who  ventured  out — what  it  was  saying  to 
that  unhappy  man  in  some  sort  of  oilskin  costume  who  was  coming 
slowly,  jadedly  along,  above  his  undersquelch  and  below  an  um- 
brella that  can  have  done  him  very  little  good.  Mr.  Challis  saw  at 
a  glance  that  he  was  not  indigenous  to  the  soil;  a  second  glance 
determined  that  he  was  a  Frenchman ;  a  third  that  he  was  a  chauf- 
feur. Certainly  Louis  Rossier — who  else?  He  smiled  as  a  non- 
motorist  smiles  when  a  motor  comes  to  grief.  When  he  reached  the 
drawing-room,  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  was  already  applying  for  a  sec- 
ond cup.  That  gentleman  was  thirsty,  no  doubt.  He  had  talked 
for  two  hours.  Not  that  he  meant  to  stop — far  from  it! 

Challis  had  no  one  to  talk  to  for  the  moment,  so  he  listened  to 
Mr.  Tomes,  who  went  on  again  as  scxin  as  he  had  made  sure  there 
were  two  lumps. 

"I  start  from  an  aspect  of  the  question  that  must  compel  the 
most  incredulous  to  admit  that  at  least  the  matrix  is  ripe  for 
solution." 

As  the  orator  paused  a  moment,  everyone  felt  bound  to  fructify 


52  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

a  little,  and  said,  "I  see,  you  propose  to  .  .  ."  or,  "I  see  your 
idea  .  .  . "  or  merely  got  as  far  as  "  I  see  you  ..."  and  re- 
mained stranded.  All  except  the  disciple  of  Graubosch,  who  mut- 
tered knowingly,  "  The  Brandenbierenschreiligrath  System.  Grau- 
bosch's  Appendix  B  deals  with  it."  He  and  Mr.  Wraxall  ex- 
changed astute  nods;  the  latter  to  oblige,  because  he  really  knew 
nothing  about  it.  But  Mr.  Tomes  wasn't  going  to  leave  any- 
thing vague.  Not  he! — a  man  with  a  fixed  glare,  and  loaded  to 
the  muzzle  with  exhaustive  elucidation ! 

Challis  did  not  wait  for  the  next  instalment.  He  cast  about 
for  an  anchorage,  and  had  not  found  a  satisfactory  one  when 
Lord  Felixthorpe,  who  had  not  appeared  at  the  beginning  of  Tea, 
came  into  the  room  with  something  to  communicate  written  on  his 
countenance. 

"  What's  gone  amiss,  Scip  ? "  said  his  friend,  William  Ruf  us. 

"That  idiot  Rossier  ..." 

"  I  told  you  he  was  a  fool.     What's  he  done  now  ?  " 

"Left  the  machine  in  a  ditch,  and  walked  home  through  the 
mud.  .  .  .  Oh  no,  he  hasn't  hurt  himself.  I  wish  he  had — in 
moderation."  The  public  becomes  interested,  and  explanation 
spreads  over  the  room.  A  lady's  voice  says,  afar,  that  its  owner 
supposes  now  we  shall  lose  our  excursion,  and  that  place  will  be 
gone,  and  it  would  have  been  the  very  thing.  Challis  doesn't  un- 
derstand this,  and  asks  Judith  the  meaning.  He  is  in  her  neigh- 
bourhood somehow — seems  to  have  sacrificed  hearing  more  about 
the  accident.  She  supposes  Sibyl  meant  the  place  for  the  Great 
Idea.  But  they  couldn't  have  gone  to-morrow  unless  the  weather 
mended,  anyhow. 

People  chatter  so  in  a  room  full;  you  soon  lose  threads  of  con- 
versation. Challis  knew  little  more  about  either  the  accident  or 
the  Great  Idea  when  he  went  away  to  dress  for  dinner  an  hour 
later.  He  was  only  aware  that  Mr.  Tomes  was  still  at  work  on 
the  Reciprocal  Interdependent  Taxation  of  Imports,  and  that  Miss 
Arkroyd  was  going  to  play  Halma  with  him  if  he  came  up  soon 
enough  after  dinner. 

In  his  letter  to  Marianne,  written  after  he  went  up  to  his  room 
rather  early — people  are  very  apt  to  think  it's  getting  on  for  bed- 
time after  rain-beleaguered  days  in  country-houses — Mr.  Challis 
merely  mentioned  two  games  at  Halma,  and  adduced  the  exciting 
character  of  that  game  as  a  reason  why  very  little  was  said.  His 
letter  implied  that  he  was  being  bored,  which  was  untrue.  How- 
ever, the  words  "  in  the  house  all  day  "  would  do  that  without  an 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  53 

antidote.  And  we  couldn't  expect  him  to  mention  the  soul-brush, 
especially  as  he  disallowed  its  existence.  He  said  a  good  deal  of 
what  he  did  know  of  the  motor-car  mishap,  which  was  natural,  for 
— so  he  said — he  had  inferred,  from  the  excitement  on  the  subject, 
that  this  car,  when  it  appeared,  would  be  the  first  ever  seen  by; 
most  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  district. 

This  machine  was  the  latest  extravagance  of  young  Lord  Felix- 
thorpe,  who  had  spent  a  thousand  pounds  upon  it;  and  its  arrival 
from  the  agent  at  Grime,  who  was  to  welcome  it — or  rather  its 
components — to  England,  and  to  qualify  it  for  the  enjoyment  of  its 
riders,  and  the  execrations  of  its  victims,  was  looked  forward  to 
with  feverish  anxiety  by  both.  But  he  could  not  give  such  details 
as  were  supplied  next  day,  after  a  fuller  sifting  of  Louis  Rossier's 
report,  which  was  not  very  intelligible  at  first.  These  had  to  wait 
for  a  postscript,  which  told  how  the  chauffeur,  who  did  not  under- 
stand three  words  of  English,  had  proved  as  sensitive  to  misdirec- 
tion as  the  compass  is  to  the  magnetic  current.  He  went  the  wrong 
way  instinctively  several  times,  and  was  headed  back,  or  finger- 
pointed  back,  just  as  often.  In  the  end  he  made  an  unfortunate 
choice  between  two  roads,  although  warned  by  a  long  shouted  in- 
struction from  a  turnipfield — which  ignored  his  nationality 
robustly — that  the  cross-over  bridge,  when  he  come  to  Sto'an's  mill, 
nigh  the  running  wa'ater,  wasn't  to  be  troosted  to  carry  lo'ads ;  and 
the  shouter  would  be  rather  shoy  of  it,  in  yower  place.  But  you 
might  take  e'er  a  one  of  they  two  ways,  at  your  liking.  Being  none 
the  wiser,  Louis  Rossier  chose  the  more  tempting  one ;  and  when  he 
came  to  the  cross-over  bridge,  which  spanned  a  ditch,  could  not,  of 
course,  tell  the  meaning  of  the  Local  Authority's  posted  caution  to 
the  effect  that  nothing  over  two  tons  was  to  use  it;  with  the  result 
that  it  gave  way  in  the  middle.  It  was  too  small  a  bridge  to  let 
any  vehicle  larger  than  a  goat-chaise  through  and  almost  too 
small  a  ditch  to  accommodate  one,  but  the  motor  was  trapped  and 
detained  in  its  sunk  centre. 

"You'll  have  to  get  to  t'  Hall  on  Sha'anks's  mear,  yoong 
ma-an,"  said  a  native,  who  was  not  really  taking  pains  to  hide  his 
joy  at  the  mishap.  Louis  got  to  the  Hall,  but  didn't  know  he  had 
ridden  Shanks's  mare. 

However,  for  a  first  accident  with  a  new  Panhard,  it  wasn't  so 
bad!  Only  one  tyre  ruined;  its  comrade  was  mendable.  In  the 
end  the  gorgeous  scarlet  vehicle  was  got  to  the  house  by  horses,  and 
was  recovering  its  spirits  and  snorting,  with  the  new  spare  tyre 
on,  by  the  time  the  company  at  the  Hall  had  eaten  too  much  lunch, 
and  were  arranging  how  they  would  spend  their  afternoon.  Chal- 


54  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lis  had  despatched  his  letter  of  the  previous  night,  and  was  en- 
joying himself.  A  gloriously  fine  day,  following  an  isolated  local 
depression  of  the  barometer,  had  removed  the  local  depressions  the 
latter  had  occasioned  to  everyone  else,  and  Miss  Arkroyd  had  ended 
a  second  interview  over  the  parroquets  by  promising  to  take  him  to 
see  the  Roman  and  British  camps  on  the  other  side  of  the  village. 

The  first  really  professional  excursion  of  the  new  motor  was  to 
be  dedicated  to  the  Great  Idea.  For  the  Great  Idea,  however 
vaguely  it  was  formulated,  was  clear  about  one  thing.  Premises 
would  be  de  rigueur.  It  was  therefore  incumbent  on  its  promoters 
to  inspect  premises,  both  in  town  and  country.  At  present  the  lat- 
ter was  the  more  popular,  because  the  weather  was  superb,  and  the 
notion  of  incorporating  with  the  Factory  a  Village  Community, 
and  perhaps  a  Garden  City,  both  in  the  evening  with  a  flawless 
Autumn  sky,  was  too  tempting  to  be  neglected.  So,  this  after- 
noon, William  Rufus  and  Sibyl  and  Lord  Felixthorpe — in  spite  of 
an  impression  he  gave  that  he  was  treating  the  Great  Idea  with 
derision — were  to  run  over  to  Whealhope  Paulswell,  about  thirty 
miles  off,  in  the  motor,  to  give  that  treasure  a  baptismal  run  and 
inspect  an  extinct  factory,  which  had  been  empty  a  quarter  of  a 
century.  They  would  be  back  by  dinner-time. 

Sir  Murgatroyd,  of  whom  we  have  seen  nothing,  as  he  has  been 
continually  talking  about  the  ruin  of  English  Trade  with  Mr. 
Ramsey  Tomes,  was  going  to  take  that  gentleman  to  see  some 
manure.  People  can  look  at  some  manure,  and  talk  about  nefari- 
ous Germany,  both  at  once.  There  is  reason  to  suppose  that  these 
two  gentlemen  talked  of  very  little  but  the  ruin  of  English  Trade 
during  the  whole  of  this  visit  to  Royd.  And  wherever  any  mem- 
ber of  the  household  was  employed — we  are  recording  the  im- 
pressions of  Mr.  Alfred  Challis — he  or  she  could  always  hear,  in 
the  remote  distance,  what  was  only  too  clearly  Mr.  Tomes  taking 
this  opportunity  to  state,  once  for  all;  or  Sir  Murgatroyd  feeling 
bound,  alike  as  a  Statesman  and  an  Englishman,  to  protest  against. 
A  steady,  continuous  rumble,  on  these  lines,  accompanied  the  not 
particularly  busy  hum  of  men,  women,  and  chits,  that  made  up  the 
round  of  life  at  Royd.  The  chits,  by-the-by,  of  which  there  were 
two  or  three,  naturally  involved  a  corresponding  number  of  young 
men,  each  to  each;  or  each  in  the  pocket  of  each,  as  you  choose. 
None  of  them  seemed  the  least  ashamed  of  never  having  a  word 
to  throw  at  anyone  outside  the  pocket,  except  its  owner,  and  the 
rest  of  Europe  seemed  by  common  consent  to  take  no  notice  of  them. 
And  all  the  while  each  one,  and  the  contents  of  its  pocket,  was,  like 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  55 

enough — so  thought  Mr.  Challis — the  centre  of  an  incubation  of 
memories  that  were  to  last  a  lifetime.  "  As  they  bake,  so  they  will 
brew,"  philosophized  Mr.  Challis  to  himself,  and  clouded  over  a 
little  as  he  remembered  that  he,  too,  was  in  the  twenties  once. 
Four  of  them  played  lawn-tennis  that  afternoon,  and  the  others 
got  somehow  lost  sight  of.  No  matter ! 

Lady  Arkroyd  had  the  carriage,  and  drove  over  to  Thanes 
Castle,  to  see  the  Duchess  of  Rankshire  before  the  Royalties  came. 
But  she  wasn't  at  all  sure  she  wouldn't  have  done  something  else 
if  she  had  known  that  Judith  was  going  to  cry  off  at  the  last 
minute.  She  relied  a  good  deal  on  her  eldest  daughter  as  a  factor 
in  social  intercourse.  But  she  didn't  confess  it. 

"  What  on  earth  is  the  girl  going  to  do  with  herself  ?  How  can 
you  be  so  tiresome,  Ju  ?  Now  do  just  get  ready  and  come.  There's 
no  hurry.  I  can  wait." 

"  Now,  Madre  dear,  you  really  ought  to  know  by  this  time  how 
bored  I  always  am  with  the  sort  of  people  they  get  at  the  Castle. 
And  I've  got  letters  to  write.  I  must  answer  Lady  Kitty  about 
the  orchids." 

"  Nonsense,  girl !    You  can't  be  all  the  afternoon  over  that." 

"  I  shall  go  out  later.  In  an  hour  or  so.  I  dare  say  I  shall  take 
Mr. — what's  his  name? — Harris — round  the  village  and  show  him 
the  Roman  Camp.  He'll  know  what  castrametation  means,  and 
things  ..." 

"  Mr.  '  Titus  Scroop '  ?  My  dear ! — he's  as  happy  as  he  can  be 
talking  to  that  idiot  Brownrigg  about  Metaphysics  and  nonsense. 
Do  let  him  alone !  " 

"  Well ! — I  dare  say  I  shall.  Or  otherwise,  as  may  be.  But  I 
won't  come  to  Thanes.  Love  to  the  Duchess." 

Judith  was  a  stronger  character  than  her  mother,  and  won.  As 
the  latter  was  driven  off,  she  said  to  herself,  for  no  apparent  rea- 
son, "  Mr.  Titus  Scroop." 

Lady  Arkroyd  was  in  the  habit  of  asking  every  celebrity  she 
came  across  to  her  home,  because  she  worshipped  genius.  But  she 
took  the  genius  for  granted  if  she  saw  any  author,  artist,  or  musi- 
cian's name  often  enough  in  print.  Was  she  sometimes  rash? 
Well — yes — sometimes !  Perhaps  a  doubt  about  "  Titus  Scroop's  " 
genius  was  the  reason  she  said  his  name.  But  if  so,  why  did  it 
lead  to  a  resolve  in  her  mind  to  ask  Mrs.  Candour — the  Mrs.  Can- 
dour of  the  moment,  whom  she  was  sure  to  meet  at  Thanes — 
more  about  Mrs.  "Titus  Scroop"?  She  kept  thinking  of  it,  off 
and  on,  all  the  way  to  the  park  gates  with  the  dragon-sentinels  on 
piers  on  each  side  presenting  arms. 


56  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

And  all  the  while  Challis  was  being  bored  by  that  idiot  Brown- 
rigg,  and  wishing  anyone  would  come  and  rescue  him.  He  re- 
sented the  idea  that  he  had  any  special  rescuer  in  view.  But  no 
one  had  said  he  had.  However,  Miss  Arkroyd  had  certainly 
spoken  about  a  walk  to  the  Roman  Camp;  so  naturally  he  would 
cast  her  for  the  part,  don't  you  see? 


CHAPTER  VI 

OF  THE  GRAUBOSCHIAN  PHILOSOPHY.  HOW  JUDITH  ARKROTD  WALKED 
WITH  MR.  CHALLIS  TO  THE  RECTORY.  HOW  HE  SAID  NOTHING  ABOUT 
HIS  WIFE  BEING  HIS  DECEASED  WIFE'S  SISTER.  HOW  HE  WAS  OUT  OF 
HIS  ELEMENT  AT  THE  RECTORY.  SALADIN  AND  HIS  CAT.  HIS 
HEDGEHOG 

THE  gentleman  spoken  of  so  disrespectfully  by  his  hostess  was 
Mr.  Adolphus  Brownrigg,  who  was  an  enthusiastic  disciple  of  the 
great  German  philosopher  Graubosch,  whose  scheme  embodied  a 
complete  Reorganization  of  Society  on  an  entirely  new  basis. 
But  whereas  all  previous  reorganizes  of  Society  had  started  on 
the  fallacious  and  mischievous  line  of  breaking  up  existing  institu- 
tions and  replacing  them  by  others  of  their  own  devising,  this  re- 
former proposed  to  utilize  them  all  as  portions  of  his  new  System. 
Thus  the  reigning  Sovereign  would  fall  easily  into  his  place  of 
Chairman  of  a  great  Central  Committee  of  Management,  retain- 
ing the  Crown  as  a  distinguishing  badge  of  his  office;  the  existing 
machinery  of  Parliamentary  election  would  answer  equally  well  for 
the  Members  of  the  Central  Committee ;  the  Bench  would  supply  us 
with  a  most  satisfactory  staff  for  what  he  termed  Courts  of  Dis- 
criminative Decision,  and  so  on,  and  so  on.  Even  the  very  Police- 
men's Uniforms  would  be  available  for  the  new  staff  of  Order- 
Keepers  and  Crime-Preventors  that  formed  part  of  his  System. 
Nay,  the  Coinage  itself  would  come  in  useful  as  Exchangeable 
Tokens  in  his  new  Method  of  Sale  and  Purchase  Accommodation. 

"  What  attitude  does  Professor  Graubosch  adopt  towards  the 
Religions  of  the  world  ? "  asked  Challis,  as  he  and  the  advocate  of 
this  new  Reform  walked  about  the  garden,  discussing  it. 

"  Graubosch,"  replied  the  latter,  "  is.  broadly  speaking,  in  favour 
of  their  complete  abolition.  Nor  do  I  myself  think  any  continu- 
ation of  them  would  be  found  necessary  in  view  of  his  new  Sys- 
tem of  Metaphysical  Checks.  No  one  recognizes  more  fully  than 
Graubosch  the  necessity  for  Moral  Restraint  derived  from  a 
Consciousness  of  the  Unseen,  whether  acting  as  a  stimulus  in  con- 
nection with  an  exalted  and  unselfish  anxiety  for  personal  rewards 
throughout  Eternity,  or  as  a  deterrent  resulting  from  the  anticipa- 

57 


58  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tion  of  unpleasantness  hereafter,  especially  of  continuous  oxidation 
with  evolution  of  caloric.     But  the  new  System  provides  for  both." 

"  As  for  instance  ?  .    .    . " 

"  For  instance,  in  respect  of  the  Idea  of  a  Deity.  .  .  .  But 
perhaps,  Mr.  Challis,  your  own  views  on  this  subject  are  ...  a 
.  .  .  well  defined?  I  should  be  sorry  to  .  .  .  to  .  .  ." 

"  To  give  offence  ?  Pray  don't  feel  any  scruples  on  my  ac- 
count." 

a  Well,  I  will  continue.  In  respect  of  this  Idea  of  a  Deity,  it  is 
true  that  Graubosch  abolishes  God,  as  such.  But  his  System 
claims  to  provide  a  substitute;  and  this  substitute  is,  to  my  think- 
ing, superior  in  many  respects  for  working  purposes  to  the  Idea  it 
displaces.  The  first  Metaphysical  Check  he  formulates  is  the  In- 
variable Necessary  Antecedent.  The  acceptance  of  this  as  an  in- 
evitable condition  of  thought  is  an  essential  of  the  System  of 
Graubosch." 

"  How  does  it  act  as  a  check  ? " 

"  It  is  rather  long  to  follow  out ;  but,  put  as  briefly  as  I  can,  it  is 
somewhat  thus:  Graubosch  admits  the  possibility  of  an  infinite 
number  of  successions  of  Antecedents,  as  we  have  an  infinite  num- 
ber of  results  or  sequents.  But  the  effect  on  the  Metaphysician  of 
contemplating  such  a  condition  of  the  Universe  is  fatal  to  reason- 
ing, and  may  easily  produce  suspension  of  the  faculties.  Phi- 
losophy stipulates  for  a  modus  vivendi;  and  as  a  working  necessity 
for  argument,  if  for  no  other  reason,  Graubosch  refers  the  whole 
of  the  Universe  to  one  Invariable  Necessary  Antecedent;  which  he 
accepts,  for  reasons  which  appear  to  me  satisfactory,  as  obviously 
superior  to  any  one  unit  of  its  results  or  sequences.  We  have  no, 
right,  he  says,  to  assume  that  any  result  or  consequence  is  not 
achievable  by  such  an  Antecedent." 

"I  concur,  on  the  whole.  Does  Graubosch  ascribe  intelligence, 
in  our  sense  of  the  word,  to  this  Antecedent  ? " 

"  Certainly  not.  Intelligence  is  merely  a  sequence  or  conse- 
quence of  some  minute  fraction  .  .  .  of  .  .  .  of  its  power." 

"Why  did  you  hesitate?" 

"  From  a  feeling  that  Power  itself  may  only  be  a  finite  human- 
ism, so  to  speak — an  Entity  on  all  fours  with  Intelligence.  But 
the  Metaphysician  has  to  leave  himself  a  few  words,  to  speak 
with.  Now  the  idea  of  greater  and  less  is  axiomatic,  and  it  is 
difficult  to  avoid  the  conclusion  that  our  Intelligence  is  a  lesser 
thing  than  its  working  substitute  in  the  Invariable  and  Necessary 
Antecedent." 

"  I  quite  understand.    To  create  Intelligence,  its  Creator  when 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  59 

creating  himself  must  go  one  better — break  his  own  anticipated 
record.  What  are  Graubosch's  views  about  Good  and  Evil?  They 
both  are  factors  in  our  existing  System,  especially  the  latter." 

"  He  ignores  both,  as  antiquated  and  unnecessary.  In  his 
System,  the  fruitless  discussions  about  which  is  which — where  one 
ends  and  the  other  begins,  and  so  on — disappear  entirely." 

"  That  sounds  good.  Vice  and  Virtue  could  shake  hands  over 
it — a  Coalition  Ministry,  don't  you  know  ? " 

"  Pardon  me ! — the  exact  reverse.  Party  Government  would  be 
intensified.  But  I  ought  to  describe  what  Graubosch  terms  the 
Plus  and  Minus  of  his  System,  in  its  Moral  or  Ethical  aspects. 
The  first  expression  recognizes  in  what  has  been  hitherto  absurdly 
called  *  Good '  merely  the  Invariable  and  Necessary  Antecedent 
leaking  out,  so  to  speak,  and  becoming  perceptible  to  our  Senses. 
The  second,  in  what  has  been  equally  absurdly  called  'Evil,'  its 
diminution  or  repression." 

Challis  yawned.  He  was  getting  bored.  "Does  not  that,"  he 
said,  "  assume  the  existence  of  some  counter-power,  able  to  dimin- 
ish and  repress  ? " 

"  Graubosch  avoids  doing  so.  And  therein  lies  the  beauty  of  his 
System.  His  Minus  is  simply  negation  of  his  Plus.  An  exact 
parallel  is  supplied  by  the  phenomena  of  light  and  darkness.  To 
ascribe  to  darkness  powers  of  extinguishing  light  is  scientifically 
absurd." 

"  I  see."  Challis  spoke  in  a  winding-up  tone.  His  bore  per- 
ceived it,  and  dexterously  pinioned  him. 

"  Pardon  me  one  moment  more,"  he  said,  "  We  are  at  a  point 
where  the  beauty  of  the  System  becomes  most  manifest.  I  refer 
to  its  elasticity — its  power  of  utilizing,  provisionally  at  any  rate, 
existing  Institutions  pending  its  maturer  development.  Graubosch 
does  not  doubt  the  efficacy  at  some  future  date  of  the  Metaphysical 
Check  on  our  propensities  supplied  by  the  Plus  and  Minus  of  his 
System.  But  he  proposes  for  the  present — at  least,  until  believers 
in  a  Personal  God  from  early  youth  have  had  time  to  die  out — to 
postpone  the  Plus  which  is  to  take  his  place.  Also — and  this  is 
important  in  connection  with  the  operation  of  Metaphysical 
Checks — he  is  favourable  to  the  retention  of  a  Personal  Devil  until 
the  Masses  have  acquired  an  insight  into  Metaphysics.  ..." 

"  I  must  ask  you  to  excuse  me,"  said  Mr.  Challis.  "  I  have  let- 
ters to  write,  and  they  say  the  Post  goes  at  twelve.  ..." 

"  But  I  hope  I  have  impressed  you  favourably.  We  must  bear 
in  mind  ..." 

"  Most  favourably,  my  dear  sir.    And  it  seems  to  me  that  if  we 


60 

only  let  things  alone  vigorously  enough,  we  may  regard  Professor 
Graubosch's  great  Reform  as  already  in  operation.  ..."  Mr. 
Challis  paused  on  behalf  of  a  newcomer,  to  whom  he  resumed: 
"  Not  at  all,  Miss  Arkroyd  .  .  .  not  the  least !  I  assure  you  Mr. 
Brownrigg  and  I  have  talked  the  subject  dry.  .  .  .  No ! — I  really 
am  speaking  the  truth."  This  with  absolute  fervour. 

"  Because  I  do  so  hate  interrupting,"  said  Judith,  who  had  been 
waiting  to  speak.  "  And  I  saw  you  were  so  interested.  But  I  can 
say  what  I  have  to  say  and  go — and  then  you  can  finish."  Mr. 
Challis  looked  dejected,  and  Judith  continued :  "  I  only  wanted  to 
say  that  I  shall  be  walking  down  to  the  village  presently,  and  could 
show  you  the  Roman  and  British  camps  and  the  prehistoric  mono- 
lith." Mr.  Challis  looked  elated.  "  Only  presently,  when  you  have 
really  had  your  talk  out.  I  shall  be  on  the  terrace."  Mr.  Challis 
was  just  on  the  point  of  arresting  Miss  Arkroyd's  departure  by 
another  violent  profession  of  intense  completion  of  the  subject  in 
hand,  when  prudence  murmured  in  his  ear  that  his  bore  mustn't  be 
allowed  to  come  too.  Now  a  pretence  that  he  was  yearning  for 
three  words  more,  and  would  then  meet  the  lady  on  the  terrace, 
just  served  to  place  Mr.  Brownrigg  in  the  position  of  a  fixture.  It 
localized  him.  Otherwise  he  might  have  moved  with  the  train  of 
events,  unshaken  off.  Even  as  it  was,  a  very  vigorous  "I  really 
mustn't  keep  Miss  Arkroyd  waiting  any  longer  "  was  wanted  to  ef- 
fect the  extraction — for  it  was  quite  like  tooth-drawing.  But  the 
force  of  handling — as  the  art-critics  phrase  it — was  so  strong  that 
Mr.  Brownrigg  couldn't  say,  "  Why  shouldn't  I  come  too,  I  should 
like  to  know  ? "  He  would  have,  nevertheless.  But  he  had  to  give 
the  point  up,  and  went  to  look  for  Mr.  Wraxall. 

Judith  was  waiting  on  the  terrace  looking  handsome.  She  was 
wrestling  with  an  intractable  glove-button,  and  her  hand  that  was 
operative  was  embarrassed  by  her  sunshade  having  been  taken  into 
its  confidence.  Mr.  Challis  could  hold  the  sunshade,  clearly.  A 
very  simple  thing!  And  when  the  glove-button  socketed  into  its 
metallic  nidus,  and  was  satisfactory,  how  obvious  for  the  young 
lady  to  take  that  sunshade  back  again,  with  a  profusion  of  thanks 
as  for  a  great  service  done!  But  did  the  little  incident  leave  the 
two  performers  exactly  where  it  found  them?  Sometimes  things 
of  this  sort  don't.  Things  of  what  sort,  do  you  ask  ?  Well ! — you 
see,  we  are  watching  Mr.  Alfred  Challis's  mind,  and  can,  for  the 
present,  only  answer — the  sort  that  made  that  gentleman  conscious 
that  the  twenties  and  he  had  parted  company  many  years  ago. 

Perhaps,  however,  it's  only  one  of  those  nonsensical  ideas  Sibyl 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  61 

gets  (now,  if  you  please,  we  are  peering  into  the  lady's  mind)  when 
she  tells  her  sister  that  flirtations  with  married  men  are  detestable. 
However,  this  time  Sibyl  couldn't  have  a  word  to  say — a  literary 
man  with  an  attenuated  beard,  and  hair  that  seems  to  have  thought 
of  curling  once,  and  then  thought  better  of  it,  and  gone  a  little 
gray  hesitatingly!  And  a  weak  mouth!  And  a  lay-down  collar! 
And  such  clothes!  No! — this  time  Sibyl  could  find  no  excuse. 
If  this  man  wasn't  safe,  you  might  as  well  have  no  male  friends 
or  even  acquaintances  at  all,  and  live  in  a  harem. 

Besides,  there  was  something  very  interesting  about  his  eyes 
and  forehead,  which  were  his  good  points.  Oh  yes! — his  hands 
were  not  bad.  They  looked  sensitive,  and  showed  the  bones. 
Judith's  mind  made  swift  excursion  down  a  side-alley.  What  was 
the  impossible  Mrs.  Challis  like  to  live  with,  she  wondered?  Did 
he  adore  her,  or  how?  Perhaps  she  wasn't  really  a  "good  soul" 
at  all,  but  adorable — in  reason. 

"  Thank  you  so  much,  Mr.  Challis.  I  always  get  into  such  a 
mess  with  buttons.  I  hope  you  are  not  afraid  of  dogs,  because 
Saladin  must  come  with  us.  He  never  gets  any  exercise  unless  I 
take  him  out."  A  huge  Danish  boarhound,  conscious  that  he  was 
spoken  of,  looked  up  and  appeared  to  sanction  the  use  of  his 
name.  He  had  smelt  Mr.  Challis,  and  found  some  excuse  for  him, 
presumably,  in  some  nicety  of  bouquet  human  nostrils  know 
not  of. 

"  Saladin's  welcome,"  said  he.  "  But  I'm  like  Br'er  Rabbit— a 
mighty  puny  man  myself,  and  I  may  very  easily  git  trompled.  .  .  ." 
For  Saladin  was  appalling. 

"What's  that  out  of?" 

"  Uncle  Remus." 

"  I  suppose  I  ought  to  read  Uncle  Remus  ? " 

"Yes;  but  don't  if  you  don't  like." 

"Not  if  I  ought  to?" 

"  The  ought  is  not  a  high  moral  ought.  You  ought  to  read 
Uncle  Remus  if  you  want  something  amusing  to  read." 

"  I  haven't  much  time  for  reading,  and  I  want  to  read  '  The 
Epidermis.'  Everyone  tells  me  I  shall  enjoy  it." 

"  Perhaps  everyone  knows.  I  don't  feel  so  much  confidence  my- 
self. Read  Uncle  Remus  first,  anyhow.  If  you  do  that,  I'll  ask 
you  to  accept  a  copy  of  t'other  one,  from  the  Author." 

"  I've  just  written  off  for  a  copy  to  the  publisher." 

"  Oh ! — have  you  ? — I  would  tell  him  to  transfer  the  order  to 
my  account — only  that  takes  all  the  edge  off  the  proceeding." 

"  When  did  Uncle  Remus  come  out  first  ? " 


62  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Oh — a  long  time  ago !  It's  odd  to  think  how  long.  Fm  over 
forty.  I  was  almost  a  boy." 

"Perhaps  that's  why  you  liked  it  so  much?  Fancy  your  being 
fourteen  years  older  than  me ! " 

"Perhaps."  The  last  half  of  Miss  Arkroyd's  remark  had  to  go 
without  answer.  It  was  too  parenthetical  to  call  for  one. 

Experience  teaches  us  that  there  is  no  meshwork  of  circum- 
stance into  which  flatter  conversation  may  weave  itself  than  the 
combination  of  a  married  man,  a  young  woman,  and  a  walk  out 
on  a  fine  afternoon,  of  set  purpose.  At  least,  that  was  the  text  of  a 
literary  reflection  of  Mr.  Challis  at  this  juncture.  He  put  it  away 
in  a  mental  storehouse  for  his  next  book.  Its  truth  or  falsehood  is 
immaterial  at  present. 

Judith  made  no  mental  note  of  what  her  experience  taught; 
but  she  knew  she  couldn't  stand  being  bored  and  she  felt  it  com- 
ing. She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  have  an  amusing  walk  with 
this  popular  favourite.  And  Sibyl  might  say  what  she  liked,  but 
she  wouldn't  be  balked ! 

A  sense  of  intended  impertinence  may  have  heightened  her 
colour  slightly,  as  she  stopped  and  turned  the  fine  eyes  full  on  to 
her  companion.  He  stopped,  too,  looking  round. 

"Mr.  Challis,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  something.  .  .  .  No! — 
don't  promise  till  you  know  what  it  is.  ..." 

"I  am  sure,  Miss  Arkroyd,  you  will  ask  me  nothing  I  should 
hesitate  to  tell  you.  ..." 

"  Don't  be  too  confident  .   .   .  it's  very  impertinent ! " 

"  All  right — go  on !    I'll  forgive  you." 

"  Is  '  Ziz » in  the  '  Spendthrift's  Legacy '  Mrs.  Challis? " 

"My  wife?  Marianne?"  Mr.  Challis  was  conscious  of  being 
reminded  of  his  wife.  A  fine  nuance  of  ashamedness — it  could 
hardly  be  called  shame — affected  his  mind,  surely?  Else  why  note 
the  perfectly  obvious  fact  that  if  he  and  Marianne  were  never  to 
forget  each  other  for  a  single  instant,  life  would  be  insupportable 
to  both.  Perhaps  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  noted  it,  though; 
suppose  we  say  that  he  declined  to  note  it,  consciously,  because 
of  its  absurd  irrelevance. 

"Yes! — Marianne."  Judith's  eyes,  with  no  concession  in  them 
of  any  shade  of  impertinence  in  the  use  of  Mrs.  Challis's  Christian 
name,  waited  for  the  answer,  as  she  still  stood,  not  stirring.  Was 
she  saying  to  herself  that  this  was  tit-for-tat;  a  riposte  for  his 
"Sibyl"  of  their  talk  in  the  morning?  Saladin,  not  used  to  this 
sort  of  thing,  waited  also,  reproachfully.  Challis,  rather  accepting 
"  Marianne "  as  a  sanction  of  his  "  Sibyl,"  was  again  conscious 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  63 

that  his  soul  was  being  brushed  by  machinery — not  an  intrusive 
brush  though;  an  easy  one  he  could  ignore.  His  answer  was  not 
difficult. 

"  Not  a  particle  of  resemblance  between  them !  Ziz  was  a " — 
he  stopped  himself  just  in  time — "  a  ...  a  ...  almost  a  sort 
of  professional  beauty."  The  one  word  "  professional "  made  all 
the  difference — saved  the  position. 

Now,  Judith  had  a  habit  of  despising  dangerous  ground  in  social 
intercourse;  it  was  part  of  what  Mr.  Challis  had  called  her 
prepotente  disposition.  She  would  always  put  her  horse  at  a 
quickset  hedge  if  any  image  crossed  her  mind  of  the  finger  of  Dis- 
cretion, the  monitress;  especially  if  it  looked  like  Sibyl's.  While 
Mr.  Challis  was  breathing  freely  about  his  dexterous  escape,  she 
made  up  her  mind  to  know  all  about  this  impossible  person  who 
wasn't  a  professional  beauty.  As  to  how  she  should  get  at  this 
knowledge,  that  was  another  matter.  All  she  could  see  her  way  to 
at  the  moment  was — not  to  be  in  a  hurry  and  spoil  her  chances. 
But  she  was  very  much  mistaken  if  she  couldn't  do  with  this 
man,  whom  she  thought  of  as  nerves  and  brains  and  very  little 
else,  what  she  had  done  before  now  with  stronger  men  than  he — 
viz.,  twist  him  round  her  little  finger. 

"  Ah ! — I'm  so  glad,"  said  she.  And  then,  as  though  to  clothe 
her  pause  in  walking  with  the  semblance  of  a  moment  of  mental 
tension,  she  resumed  movement  forward.  Saladin  emphasized  her 
action  by  a  single  tremendous  bark,  and  did  the  same.  A  startled 
waterfowl  decided  that  his  position  was  untenable,  and  condemned 
the  neighbourhood,  going  off  in  a  bee-line  with  a  rush.  Two  horses 
out  at  grass  galloped  round  their  field,  and  stood  at  gaze,  with  open 
nostrils.  Of  which  events  Saladin,  their  source  and  origin,  took  no 
notice,  but  moved  on,  smelling  the  planet  gently  and  thoughtfully. 

"Why  are  you  glad?"  asked  Challis.  "You  didn't  like  Ziz,  I 
suppose  ? "  A  note  of  pique  in  his  voice.  The  young  lady's  con- 
fidence about  the  finger-twisting  grew. 

"  I  admired  her,"  she  said  with  marked  emphasis.  "  She 
fascinated  me  down  to  the  ground.  But  ...  if  you  ask  me 
.  .  .  you  mustn't  mind  my  saying,  you  know  ..." 

"I  can't  tell  you  how  I  enjoy  hearing  what  you  really  think. 
No  compliments,  please !  " 

"Well  ...  if  I  can  express  myself!  I  should  say  your 
heroine's  was  rather  a  ...  rather  a  ...  shrill  personality.  I 
don't  mean  unlovable  exactly,  but  .  .  .  well !  .  .  .  I  can't  think 
of  any  other  way  of  putting  it." 

"  She  was  meant  to  be  excitable.    Neurotic,  as  the  slang  goes 


64  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

nowadays.  Marianne  is  neither.  I  hope  you  liked  the  reconcilia- 
tion scene  by  the  open  grave,  and  the  way  they  appeal,  as  it  were, 
to  the  coffin  for  forgiveness.  Some  of  the  reviews  thought  it 
strained." 

"  Strained ! — oh  no !  It  seemed  to  me  in  some  ways  one  of  the 
most  touching  things  I  ever  read.  And  her  explanation  to  Septi- 
mus that  she  had  divorced  him  on  principle  in  order  that  he 
should  marry  Julia,  and  both  get  a  chance  of  recovering  their  posi- 
tion in  society.  .  .  .  But  do  tell  me — only  it's  hardly  fair  to  ask 
— did  you  mean  that  she  put  the  arsenic  in  Julia's  coffee,  or  the 
negress  ? " 

"I  leave  that  an  open  question  for  the  reader  to  speculate 
about.  But  you  may  rest  assured  of  one  thing,  Miss  Arkroyd — the 
young  person  in  my  novel  is  about  as  unlike  my  dear  wife  as  she 
can  be."  He  had  determined  to  pay  some  little  tribute  to  his  dear 
wife  as  soon  as  the  chance  came,  that  she  should  lie  less  upon  his 
conscience.  Here  it  was.  "Marianne  is  the  exact  opposite — a 
pussycat  upon  the  hearthrug — a  .  .  .  kettle  singing  on  the  hob, 
you  might  almost  say.  She's  not  exactly  what's  called  a  clever 
woman,  certainly.  .  .  ." 

"But  she  is  none  the  worse  for  that!  How  I  do  hate  clever 
women !  "  All  the  same,  Judith  thought  to  herself :  "  Why  couldn't 
he  leave  her  in  peace,  on  the  hearthrug  or  the  hob  ? "  His  last 
reservation  had  spoiled  his  little  tribute,  and  indeed,  he  felt  it 
himself.  Bother ! 

Setting  it  right  would  make  it  worse.  In  spite  of  a  fervent  mur- 
mur from  the  young  lady,  that  she  felt  she  knew  exactly  what  Mrs. 
Challis  was  like,  and  that  they  would  be  sure  to  understand  each 
other,  and  what  a  pity  it  was  Mrs.  Challis  had  not  been  able  to 
come,  he  felt  he  would  do  best  to  brusquer  the  conversation.  He 
couldn't  well  say  "  Marianne  isn't  here  because  your  mother  never 
invited  her — only  told  her  she  might  come."  So,  feeling  that  if 
he  could  detach  the  conversation  from  Marianne  personally  he  did 
not  very  much  care  by  what  means  the  end  was  effected,  he  made 
a  fragmentary  remark  to  the  effect  that  he  had  had  an  orginal  in 
his  mind  for  the  neurotic  heroine,  but  quite  a  different  person  from 
his  wife — utterly  unlike  her.  "Unlike  in  appearance — individu- 
ality— everything !  Is  that  the  market -cross  ?  "  No,  it  wasn't  the 
market-cross;  it  was  the  pump.  So  Mr.  Challis's  conclusion  did 
very  little  towards  its  object. 

Judith  halted  as  before,  after  establishing  the  pump.  She  knew 
she  was  going  to  be  impertinent  again;  and  drawled  a  word  or 
two  to  that  effect,  to  get  on  a  safe  footing.  "  But  do  forgive  me," 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  65 

she  said,  "if  I  ask  who  the  lady  was.  You  needn't  tell  me,  you 
know."  And  then,  as  Challis  wavered  between  disclosure  and  con- 
cealment, put  in  a  word  to  clinch  matters :  "  Treat  me  as  a  friend. 
We  can  always  quarrel,  you  know !  "  The  soul-brush  seemed  to  go 
a  little  quicker. 

This  author  was  a  man  who  fancied  he  understood  womankind — 
and  probably  his  was  a  fair  average  of  knowledge  in  a  department 
where  so  much  ignorance  exists.  But  there  was  one  sort  of 
woman  he  could  not  understand — the  woman  with  a  stronger  na- 
ture than  his  own.  He  had  only  mixed  with  his  equals,  so  far. 
He  could  be  quite  unaware  that  he  was  being  influenced — could 
still  persuade  himself,  as  a  tribute  to  his  manhood,  that  he  was 
acting  from  a  politic  motive.  He  could  make  an  astute  note  that 
his  insight  into  humanity — "  Human  Nature  .  .  .  behooves  that 
I  know  it " — showed  him  that  he  could  place  confidence  in  this 
lady.  It  had  nothing  to  do  with  her  eyes  or  her  outline.  It  was 
his  Insight. 

"  I  don't  mind  telling  you."  A  slight  hitch  before  the  last 
word  showed  that  the  speaker  had  just  avoided  italics.  He  paused 
a  moment,  to  be  quite  sure  he  didn't  mind,  then  continued :  "  The 
original  of  '  Ziz '  was  my  first  wife.  So  far  as  there  was  an 
original.  But  exaggerated  out  of  all — out  of  all  individuality." 

"  I  never  knew  that  you  had  been  married  before."  The  word- 
ing of  this — "  never  "  during  the  last  forty-eight  hours ! — was  ahead 
of  their  intimacy,  but  her  hearer  accepted  it.  It  chimed  in  with 
that  luxury  of  the  soul-brush,  always  at  work.  He  would  not  on 
any  account  have  had  it  exchanged  for,  "  They  did  not  tell  me  you 
had  been  married  twice."  Nevertheless,  he  was  unaware  that  he 
was  being  influenced,  and  went  on  towards  expansive  confidence, 
unsuspicious  of  himself. 

"  I  married  about  fourteen  years  ago,  and  lost  my  wife  within  a 
twelvemonth.  My  son  is  a  big  boy  now,  at  Rugby;  he  was  born 
just  before  his  mother  died.  He  always  thinks  and  speaks  of  Mari- 
anne as  his  mother.  She  has  always  been  a  mother  to  him,  in  fact. 
Her  own  children — we  have  two  little  girls — do  not  realize  his  half- 
brothership.  We  have  never  tried  to  make  them  do  so." 

"  How  right ! "  from  Judith.  Confidence  was  improving.  She 
was  giving  sanction  to  family  arrangements. 

"Yes,  I  think  it  has  been  beat.  Their  difference  of  age  sug- 
gests nothing  to  them." 

"  I  suppose  they  know  ?  " 

"Yes — academically,  one  might  say.  But  knowledge  of  that 
is  as  nothing  against  the  force  of  a  child's  acceptance  of  its  status 


66  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

quo.  When  I  married  Marianne,  the  boy — he's  Bob — was  still  too 
young  to  pay  much  attention  to  the  fact  that  she  brought  him 
away  from  his  granny's  to  live  at  my  house.  The  only  difference 
that  impresses  him  between  himself  and  his  sisters  is  that  lie  can 
remember  so  much  more  clearly  than  they  do  the  house  where  my 
first  wife  and  I  used  to  live.  It  is  the  house  described  in  '  The 
Spendthrift's  Legacy.'  I  shall  always  believe  it  was  that  title  that 
made  it  so  fetching.  You  see,  you  can't  guess  whether  the  Spend- 
thrift inherited  the  legacy  or  bequeathed  it.  It  gets  on  your  brain, 
and  then  you  ask  for  it  at  Mudie's.  ..." 

Judith  interrupted.  "  Of  course,  the  Spendthrift  left  the  Leg- 
acy. But  why  was  he  a  Spendthrift,  one  wants  to  know.  .  .  . 
Yes,  I  see.  It  was  a  lucky  title.  But  did  you  always  write  ?  " 

"  Not  until  the  firm  of  accountants  I  was  with  wound  up  the 
affairs  of  Eatwell  and  Lushington,  the  big  publishers.  I  was  sent 
to  check  and  overhaul  the  stock.  An  almost  unsold  novel  attracted 
my  attention — an  edition  of  two  thousand — fifteen  hundred  in 
sheets.  Its  issue  had  been  arrested  by  the  discovery  that  the  author 
— who  had  just  died  of  appendicitis,  by-the-bye — had  taken  an- 
other man's  title." 

"I  suppose  you  can  be  prosecuted  for  taking  another  man's 
title?" 

"  H'm — no !  At  least,  there  is  no  copyright  in  a  title.  It  wasn't 
that.  It  was  for  the  book's  own  sake.  Publishers  don't  like  other 
people's  titles  for  their  books.  I  was  able  to  offer  a  suggestion 
which  made  it  possible  to  use  the  sheets.  The  bound  copies  were 
made  paper-pulp  of  again,  I  believe." 

"  I  can't  see  much  encouragement  to  authorship  in  that,  Mr. 
Challis." 

"  None  at  all.  But  Mr.  Saxby,  who  is  virtually  Eatwell  and 
Lushington — one's  dead,  and  the  other  has  become  a  missionary  in 
Marocco — saw  reason  to  believe  I  should  succeed  as  a  writer,  owing 
to  the  hew  first  chapter  I  wrote  for  this  book  to  accommodate  the 
new  title.  He  made  me  write  a  novel  for  the  firm,  and  I  suc- 
ceeded." 

"  But  I  don't  understand.  Wasn't  the  old  title  printed  any- 
where on  the  old  sheets  ? " 

"  Printed  everywhere !  The  novel  was  called  *  Amaris,'  and 
there  were  no  headlines.  The  page-tops  were  just  Amaris,  Amaris, 
Amaris  all  through." 

"What  is  'Amaris'?  And  how  on  earth  did  you  man- 
age? .  .  ." 

"  Stop  a  bit,  or  I  shall  want  Gargantua's  mouth,    '  Amaris '  was 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  67 

a  name  the  author  concocted,  like  Mrs.  Kenwig's  '  Morleena.'  He 
wanted  to  be  quite  sure  his  heroine's  name  had  never  been  used 
for  a  novel  before,  so  that  he  could  make  it  the  title.  But  it  had, 
with  a  Latin  subtitle,  in  which  dulcibus  and  amaris  were  put  in 
contrast.  ..." 

"  Never  mind  the  Latin,"  said  Judith.     "  What  did  it  mean  ?  " 

"  It  amounted  to  the  question,  '  Is  Life  most  full  of  bitter  things 
or  sweet  ? '  and  the  title  answered  the  question.  It  might  have 
been  called  '  Dulcibus '  for  any  light  it  threw  on  the  problem.  But 
it  wouldn't  have  sold.  Nothing  sells  without  a  snarl  or  a  howl 
or  a  pig-sty  in  it." 

"  But  I'm  so  curious  to  know  how  you  got  over  the  difficulty." 

"  Simple  enough !  We  turned  it  into  '  Tamarisk.'  .  .  .  How  ? 
Why,  of  course,  by  printing  a  '  T  '  at  the  beginning  and  a  '  K '  at 
the  end.  It  cost  something  to  run  the  sheets  carefully  through 
again,  but  not  so  much  as  burning  them." 

"What  was  there  about  'Tamarisk'  in  the  book?" 

"  Not  a  word  till  I  rewrote  the  first  dozen  pages.  I  had  to  read 
that  blessed  book  through  till  I  nearly  knew  it  by  heart,  in  order 
to  work  out  the  idea.  But  it  seemed  all  right  when  it  was  done. 
I  was  rather  proud  of  it." 

"  I  dare  say  it  was  tremendously  clever.  But  how  was  it  done  ? 
That's  what  I  want  to  know." 

"  I  made  the  name  of  the  girl  '  Tamarisk '  instead  of  '  Amaris/ 
and  then  her  baby  brother  can't  pronounce  it — calls  her  Amaris; 
and  the  family  catch  the  pronunciation,  and  she  adopts  the  name 
outright.  It  was  difficult  to  do,  because  the  conditions  implied 
were  those  of  the  bosom  of  an  affectionate  family,  and  the  sequel 
might  have  clashed.  ..." 

"Because  .   .   .?" 

"  Well,  you  see,  the  girl  becomes  a  Vampire,  and  sucks  the  little 
brother's  blood.  But  I  succeeded.  In  fact,  I  think  the  very  diffi- 
culties of  the  situation  produced  a  certain  pathos." 

"  I  see,"  said  Judith,  with  a  gush  of  intense  perception.  "  I  see 
that  would  be  so.  ...  Yes,  that  is  the  market-cross,  this  time." 

Is  the  gap  above  large  enough  to  include  an  inspection  of  a 
market-cross,  a  pump,  a  camp,  and  a  village  church?  Perhaps, 
considering  how  little  was  left  of  the  last — though,  of  course,  some 
of  the  walls  had  ancient  invisible  cores.  But  hardly  for  tea  at  the 
Rectory,  which  had  to  be  fresh-made;  rather  like  the  church, 
though  in  the  case  of  the  latter  a  few  of  the  old  leaves  were  pre- 
served from  the  first  brew,  so  to  speak.  Poor  old  leaves! — poor 


68        IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

conscious  objects  of  active  conservation,  each  paroxysm  of  which 
left  a  little  less  of  the  flavour  of  the  moyen  age  behind  it — a 
shadow  less  of  excuse  for  another  subscription  list  on  their  be- 
half, or  another  paper  in  the  Journal  of  the  local  Society  of  Anti- 
quaries. They  were  being  handed  down  to  posterity  with  such 
solicitude  that  whatever  of  bloom  the  axe  and  hammer  of  Puritan- 
ism had  left  behind  seemed  like  to  come  off  on  the  gloves  of  Ec- 
clesiastical Archaeology. 

Is  it  necessary  to  say  that  the  foregoing  is  only  a  peep  into  the 
ill-regulated  mind  of  Mr.  Alfred  Challis  at  about  the  time  that 
the  fresh-made  tea  at  the  Rectory  had  begun  to  reanimate  it? 
But,  of  course,  Mr.  Challis  never  said  a  word  to  this  effect  to  his 
host,  and  that  reverend  gentleman  naturally  didn't  want  to  talk 
about  local  matters.  He  was  sick  of  his  interesting  surroundings, 
and  wanted  to  hear  about  the  new  motor-car  and  wireless  teleg- 
raphy and  aerostation  and  coloured  photography,  and  all  sorts  of 
things  that  were  up-to-date  three  years  ago,  and  for  that  matter 
are  still,  to  a  certain  extent.  About  which  and  other  things  the 
literary  gentleman  was  silent  and  absent-minded,  in  spite  of  the 
tea.  Had  he  been  bound  to  account  to  himself  for  this,  he 
would  have  found  it  very  difficult  to  do  so.  Not  being  bound,  he 
allowed  his  mind  to  recognize  the  fact  that  he  never  did  talk  much 
to  Parsons — you  could  never  be  sure  you  wouldn't  give  offence! — 
and  to  feel  that  reserve,  short  of  incivility  of  course,  was  plausible 
at  least. 

For  he  was  one  of  those  unpractical  persons  who,  never  having 
been  thrashed  into  a  Creed  in  childhood,  and  being  liberally  ready 
to  doubt  any  Creed  of  his  own  concoction,  associated  Religions, 
broadly  speaking,  with  the  opening  or  closing  of  shops  on  Sunday, 
the  suppression  of  bands  in  the  parks,  and  the  singing  of  the  same 
tune  over  and  over  again  in  unison  at  street-corners.  When  he 
came  by  chance  on  the  sound  of  a  harmonium  making  an  un- 
intelligible droning,  he  conceived  of  it  as  Christianity  going  on  in 
a  corner,  fraught  with  a  quaint  old-world  feeling  to  the  passer-by, 
but  scarcely  to  be  encouraged  by  enlightenment.  He  had  cul- 
tivated Ritual  so  far  as  to  be  ready,  on  emergency,  to  take  off  his 
hat  nnd  look  intently  into  it,  watching  anxiously  the  while  for 
subsidence  of  religious  symptoms  without.  At  old-fashioned 
houses,  where  Prayers  might  be  expected  to  occur  at  any  moment, 
he  used  to  become  in  a  sense  demoralised,  and  felt  lost  when  he 
found  himself  out  of  reach -of  a  chair  or  convenient  prie-Dieu  of 
some  sort.  His  only  really  heart-felt  expression  of  gratitude  to 
his  own  or  anyone  else's  Maker  was  the  "  Thank  God  that's  over !  " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  69 

that  he  didn't  say  aloud  at  the  end.  Messiahs  of  all  ranks,  from 
the  highest  to  the  lowest,  he  regarded  as  mere  bones  of  contention 
along  interminable  sectaries,  all  ready  to  fang  each  other,  but  kept 
in  check  by  Scotland  Yard.  Qualified  practitioners  of  Religion, 
whether  Priest  or  Presbyter,  he  looked  on  as  mere  survivals  of  a 
past  age  perishing  slowly  of  Civilization.  He  was  not  prepared  to 
take  the  responsibility  of  hurrying  their  extinction,  and,  indeed, 
was  ready  to  make  concession  on  minor  points,  complying  in  litera- 
ture with  the  public  conviction  that  the  pronoun  standing  for 
the  name  of  the  Maker  of  the  Stellar  Universe,  and  possibly  others, 
really  ought  to  be  printed  with  a  capital  letter.  We  are  merely 
putting  him  on  record — not  hinting  at  any  opinion  how  far  he  was 
right  or  wrong. 

Why  do  we  call  Mr.  Alfred  Challis  unpractical?  it  may  be  asked. 
Simply  because,  while  he  avoided  or  ignored  all  experts  in  Applied 
Religion,  he  himself  was  unprepared  with  any  substitute  for  it. 
And  this  was  so  even  in  the  case  of  his  own  children.  He  had, 
however,  given  carte  blanche,  by  implication  of  supineness,  to  the 
partner  of  his  joys,  sorrows,  and  admixtures  of  the  two.  He  knew 
perfectly  well  that  if  he  could  have  cancelled  the  little  restored 
church  at  Royd,  and  the  Parsonage  and  all  its  belongings,  and  left 
Royd  free  from  what  he  counted  superstition,  of  a  sort,  he  would 
have  held  his  hand — simply  because  he  could  not  for  the  life  of  him 
have  suggested  any  alternative  that  would  not  have  worked  round 
to  the  same  thing  in  the  end.  He  was  convinced  at  heart,  even 
while  he  made  mental  notes  about  Clerical  Humbugs  who  pretended 
to  believe  what  they  knew  German  criticism  had  exploded  long 
ago — for  Mr.  Challis  had  read  whatever  fostered  his  predisposi- 
tions, just  like  yourself  and  the  present  writer — that  if  this  ath- 
letic-looking, upright  gentleman  and  his  serious  sister — for  it 
seemed  he  was  a  widower — were  to  be  suddenly  removed  from  Royd, 
as  well  as  any  religious  outscourings  of  a  Dissenting  nature  hang- 
ing about — if  all  these  were  cleared  away  and  the  village  left  in 
charge  of  the  human  heart  and  intellect  ed  id  genus  omne,  the 
human  stomach  et  istud  genus  omne  would  get  their  way  in  double- 
quick  time,  and  a  perfect  Saturnalia  would  come  about  of  Bacchus 
and  Priapus,  of  Cabiric  deformities  lurking  round  the  corner  for 
a  chance,  and  Beer.  At  any  rate,  he  was  enough  convinced  of  this 
to  be  rather  grateful  to  the  Clerical  Humbugs  for  pretending,  pend- 
ing enlightenment.  He  felt  it  was  benevolent  in  him  to  be  mean 
at  the  cost  of  his  own  conscience,  and  to  hold  his  tongue  and  leave 
them  undenounced,  in  the  interest  of  Humanity. 

This  chronicle  has  no  opinions — note  that!     The  foregoing  is 


70 

only  a  peep  into  the  mind  of  a  literary  man  who  was  never  at  a 
University.  Had  he  been  at  one,  many  college-chums  in  Orders 
would  have  checked  his  condemnations.  The  man  one  has 
read  with,  swum  with,  cricketed  with — cannot  be  a  Hypocrite. 
Absurd ! 

Our  snapshots  of  Mr.  Alfred  Challis's  mind  have  taken  long 
to  record,  but  they  serve  their  turn  in  this  place  better,  perhaps, 
than  the  few  trifling  incidents  of  the  visit  at  the  Rectory.  Con- 
sider that  the  lady  and  gentleman  are  on  their  way  back  to  the  Hall, 
in  a  golden  sunset-light  which  makes  the  former  resplendent,  and 
does  no  harm  to  the  appearance  of  the  latter.  Judith  weighs  him 
more  carefully  than  she  has  done  yet,  and  the  result  may  be  more 
favourable  in  such  a  glow.  Quite  passable! — is  her  verdict.  And 
she  knows  how  she  looks,  bless  you,  reasoning  by  analogy !  For  all 
her  previous  verdicts  about  her  companion's  looks — so  far  as  they 
were  favourable — have  run  on  lines  of  intellectual  rather  than  phys- 
ical beauty. 

The  reason  she  looked  at  him  carefully  at  that  moment  of  start- 
ing from  the  Parsonage  may  have  been  because  of  an  impression 
she  had  that  he  had  cut  a  poor  figure  as  against  that  of  the  Par- 
son. It  had  so  chanced  that  Saladin,  who  had  behaved  well  in 
the  house — accepting  small  sweet  biscuits  with  reserves  as  to  first 
approval  of  them — had,  on  coming  away  through  the  garden,  just 
as  they  reached  the  gate,  become  aware  of  cats,  as  an  abstraction. 
Mr.  Challis's  hold  on  his  collar  he  hardly  took  any  notice  of;  and 
it  was  fortunate  that  the  Rev.  Athelstan  Taylor  (that  was  his 
name)  got  hold  on  the  other  side  just  in  time  to  prevent  Saladin 
starting  for  a  concrete  cat  over  the  flower-beds.  "  You  had,  per- 
haps, best  let  me  have  both  sides,  Mr.  Challis,"  said  he.  Then  had 
followed  a  magnificent  contest  between  the  Rev.  Athelstan  and  the 
boarhound.  If  the  former  could  have  been  unfrocked,  it  would 
have  been  a  Greek  bas-relief.  It  ended  in  a  draw,  as  the  concrete 
cat  vanished.  "  I  couldn't  have  held  you  much  longer,  old  chap," 
said  the  Rector  unassumingly  to  Saladin,  during  apolorries  and 
explanations,  dogwise.  These  continued  for  some  time  after  they 
had  left  the  Rectory,  and  Judith  was  really  glad  Saladin's  chain 
was  on,  with  no  one  to  help  stronger  than  her  literary  friend,  if  a 
cat  occurred.  Rabbits  had  palled  on  Saladin,  owing  to  their  ab- 
surd and  unfair  practice  of  running  underground. 

"He's  a  fine  fellow,  your  Parson,  Miss  Arkroyd,"  said  Challis. 
He  acknowledged  it  readily;  athletics  were  not  his  line. 

"  The  Reverend  Athelstan  ?  (Yes,  my  darling  precious  pet,  you 
did  quite  right,  and  it  was  .m  odious  cat!)  Oh  yes — he  was  a 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  71 

great  athlete  in  his  old  Oxford  days;  was  in  the  'Varsity  eight. 
(Yes,  dear  love! — you  shall  lick  when  we  get  home.  Now  walk 
quiet,  and  let  people  talk.)  Yes — he's  painfully  strong."  There 
was  something  in  this  of  implied  justification  for  people  who  were 
not. 

"  I'm  afraid  I'm  painfully  weak — by  comparison.  My  sedentary 
employments  don't  develop  the  muscles."  But,  after  all,  reading 
prayers  and  singing  of  anthems  does  not,  either.  This  was  in  foro 
conscientice—not  spoken  aloud. 

"  Oh,  everybody  can't  Sandow.  7  think  that  sort  of  thing  rather 
tiresome,  carried  too  far.  However,  we  are  very  good  friends,  the 
Reverend  and  I.  I  like  a  man  that  has  the  courage  of  his 
opinions.  He's  quite  in  a  minority  here  about  the  Woman  ques- 
tion— or  I  suppose  I  should  say  questions.  But  I  meant  the  Fran- 
chise business  particularly.  He  and  the  Bishop  are  at  daggers 
drawn  about  it.  I  haven't  heard  him  say  much  about  the  other. 
I  fancy,  though,  he's  at  heart  in  favour  of  it — more  than  myself, 
perhaps.  I  mean  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill." 

"  Are  not  you  .  .  .  ?  "  Mr.  Challis  had  a  hesitation  on  him, 
not  like  his  usual  way  of  speech.  That  was  an  amused  way  usu- 
ally, a  confident  one  almost  always.  This  was  neither. 

"  I  must  confess  .  .  ."  said  Judith  hesitatingly — "I  must  con- 
fess to  having  very  little  sympathy  with  men  who  want  to  marry 
their  deceased  wives'  sisters.  It's  a  question  of  taste,  according  to 
me — nothing  to  do  with  the  high  moralities."  The  implied  sneer 
against  all  moral  law  was  no  discomfort  to  her  hearer.  On  the  con- 
trary, spoken  as  it  was  by  a  good-looking  young  lady  in  a  sunset 
light,  it  seemed  to  him  alike  picturesque  and  liberal.  But  he 
changed  the  conversation  suddenly,  as  though  something  in  it  had 
disagreed  with  him. 

"What  a  capital  photographer  the  great  Athelstan  seems  to 
be !  "  He  said  it  with  a  definite  air  of  "  Let  us  talk  of  something 
else."  She  glanced  round  at  him,  decided  with  some  surprise  that 
she  had  shocked  him,  but  answered  without  showing  it.  She  was 
quite  a  woman  of  the  world,  was  Judith. 

"  He's  a  splendid  photographer.  You  know  he  took  all  those 
photos  for  *  Ten  Years  of  Slum  Growth ' — my  cousin's  book  ?  " 
Mr.  Challis  pretended  he  knew  this  book ;  but  he  didn't.  "  I  made 
him  come  and  photograph  my  own  special  slum  population  in  Tal- 
lack  Street.  But  Lady  Elizabeth  wouldn't  have  them  in  the  book. 
She  said  Tallack  Street  could  hardly  rank  as  a  slum,  in  her  sense 
of  the  word." 

"Was  it  too  swell?" 


72  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  She  said  so.  Well ! — you  shall  see  the  photographs,  and  judge 
for  yourself." 

But  the  conversation  had  fallen  flat.  A  chill  had  come.  Even 
the  discovery  that  the  moon  had  risen  when  we  were  not  looking 
did  nothing  to  remove  it.  We  were  not  young  enough,  probably, 
or  not  old  enough,  for  lunar  influences.  Indifference  to  Phoebe 
begins  with  maturity,  and  even  outlasts  it.  So  thought  Mr.  Chal- 
lis,  when  rather  mechanically  called  on  to  admire  the  silver  disc, 
shot  with  gold,  just  getting  clear  of  a  purple  gloom  that  was  the 
hallowed  smoke  of  unholy  Grime — hallowed  by  the  sun's  last  word 
to  twilight,  its  heir-at-law  and  sole  executor.  For  all  that,  Mr. 
Challis  made  notes  in  this  connection  for  literary  purposes,  while 
Judith  thought  to  herself  that  this  would  never  do.  She  must 
make  an  effort,  or  the  skein  she  was  going  to  twist  round  her  finger 
would  float  away  and  be  lost. 

"I  know  I  shocked  you  just  now,"  said  she. 

"  Shocked  me  ?— when  ?  " 

"Just  before  we  got  to  the  photography.  ..." 

"  I  have  quite  forgotten.  What  were  we  saying? "  This  was  not 
true;  he  remembered  perfectly. 

"  How  kind  of  you  to  pretend  to  forget !  Forgive  my  disbeliev- 
ing you." 

Challis  was  open  to  a  recrudescence  of  veracity.  Perhaps  it  was 
a  fib  this  time — he  made  the  admission.  But  as  he  made  it,  he 
was  again  conscious  of  the  soul-brush  at  work.  Had  he  perceived 
the  skein-analogy,  he  might  have  recognized  its  first  clip  round 
the  finger.  "  We  were  talking  of  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  Bill, 
I  think,"  said  he.  "  But  why  you  think  you  shocked  me  I  can't 
imagine." 

"  Never  mind ! — if  you  don't  recollect.  But  Sibyl  would  have 
lectured  me.  She  always  says  I  ridicule  Moral  Law.  Perhaps  I 
do,  in  a  certain  sense.  But  Sibyl  is  the  soul  of  propriety." 

"  I  can't  see  where  ridicule  of  Moral  Law  comes  in,  so  far. 
What  you  said  was — well ! — amounted  to  a  condemnation  of  the 
taste  of  men  who  wish  to  marry  their  wives'  sisters.  Perhaps  I 
misunderstood?"  Challis's  manner  had  a  flavour  of  personal  in- 
terest; the  amused  tone  had  gone,  and  the  last  words  ended  on  a 
pause  for  an  answer,  with  an  intention  in  them  of  hearing  it  and 
going  on.  The  skein  would  run  on  easily  from  now,  said  the 
winder.  But  not  too  quick  at  first. 

"  Oh  no ! — quite  right,"  she  said.  "  I  meant  that.  For  instance 
— I  shouldn't  mention  this,  only  I  see  you  guessed  it.  You  are  so 
quick  at  guessing  things.  ..." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  73 

"  I'm  not.     What  do  you  suppose  I  have  guessed  ?  " 

"  Why — about  the  Reverend  Athelstan,  of  course,  and  Elizabeth 
Caldecott.  ..." 

"Elizabeth  who?" 

"  Well — you  saw  her,  just  now !  " 

"  I  thought  she  was  his  sister  ?  " 

"  Oh,  no ! — sister-in-law." 

"What  were  you  saying  about  them — just  now?  You  began 
'  For  instance,'  and  pulled  up.  ..." 

"  I  was  going  to  say  theirs  was  a  case  in  point.  If  Mr.  Taylor 
wanted  to  marry  Miss  Caldecott,  I  should  consider  it  simply  a 
lapse  from  good  taste  on  his  part.  I  shouldn't  fret  over  the 
moralities.  He  and  Bishop  Barham  would  have  to  fight  that  out 
between  them.  .  .  .  Oh  dear! — what  has  Saladin  got?  I'm 
afraid  it's  a  hedgehog.  Do  you  think  you  could  keep  hold  of  him, 
just  for  a  few  seconds,  while  I  throw  it  out  of  his  reach?"  This 
was  achieved  with  difficulty;  all  the  greater  from  a  misconception 
of  the  position  by  Saladin,  who  thought  it  was  all  done  for  his  sake, 
as  a  relaxation.  The  hedgehog  was  thrown  over  a  long  high  wall, 
and  Saladin  ran  along  it  each  way,  leaping  up  at  intervals. 

"  He  gets  so  irritated  with  hedgehogs,  and  I  don't  wonder,  poor 
darling !  I  hope  he  hasn't  strained  your  hand  ? "  Mr.  Challis 
couldn't  say  very  much  about  that.  Nothing  to  speak  of !  "  Let's 
go  on.  He'll  get  tired  of  that,  and  I  don't  hear  the  bull  anywhere — 
it's  all  right.  What  was  I  saying  ? "  It  is  perturbing  to  the  non- 
bucolic  mind  to  hear  a  necessary  and  inevitable  bull  taken  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

"  You  were  speaking  of  Mr.  Taylor  and  Miss  Caldecott.  Is  he 
supposed  to  want  to  marry  her  ?  " 

"  I  really  couldn't  say.  Men  are  so  odd.  Of  course,  if  she  were 
less  angular  ..."  The  young  lady  blew  a  whistle  for  Saladin. 
The  intentness  with  which  both  watched  for  the  dog  to  appear  from 
the  quarter  he  was  last  seen  in  enabled  him  to  play  off  a  little 
joke  at  their  expense.  For  when  Challis  turned  his  head,  after 
much  watching  and  whistling,  there  was  that  confounded  beast, 
pretending  all  the  while  to  wait,  after  a  brief  circuit  of  a  mile  or 
so  out  of  sight.  He  made  a  pretence  of  not  being  able  to  under- 
stand motives,  combined  with  great  forbearance  in  not  asking  for 
an  explanation  of  them. 

The  skein-winding  had  been  a  little  spoiled,  but  Judith  got  it 
again  in  order  before  arriving  at  the  Hall,  and  it  would  wait  for  its 
opportunity.  Her  mere  acceptance  of  silence  in  the  twilight  of  the 
great  avenue,  as  though  conversation-making  was  not  called  for 


74  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tinder  the  circumstances,  had  its  force.  It  might  have  been  spoiled 
by  a  quicker  pace,  to  finish  the  walk  up ;  but,  if  anything,  there  was 
a  disposition  to  loiter  and  to  hate  the  idea  of  being  indoors  on 
such  a  heavenly  evening. 

"  Your  wife's  name  was  .  .  .  ? "  Surely  the  subject  franked  a 
dropped  voice,  in  harmony  with  the  beauty  of  the  said  evening — a 
touch  of  tenderness  for  its  sake  entirely.  None  but  a  coarse 
nature  would  shout  against  the  musical  hushing  of  the  wind  in  the 
beeches.  Let  there  be  no  false  note  in  the  chord. 

Challis  accepted  this  tenderness  as  a  tribute  to  the  departed.  He 
answered,  "  Kate — Kate  Verrall."  He  need  have  said  no  more,  but 
it  filled  out  a  sympathetic  funeral  tone,  in  keeping  with  the  hour, 
to  add :  "  She  died  within  two  years  of  our  first  meeting." 

Miss  Arkroyd's  regret  at  having  raked  up  a  painful  memory 
was  so  great  that  she  all  but  laid  her  hand  on  her  companion's 
sleeve.  "  Oh  no,"  she  said,  still  more  tenderly,  "  I  did  not  mean 
that.  I  meant  Marianne's  maiden  name."  It  would  have  been 
artificial,  and  stodgy,  too,  to  call  her  "  your  present  wife."  Better 
the  frankness  of  a  sympathetic  nature,  and  Marianne. 

"  Craik,"  was  the  unqualified  answer.  Challis  wished  that  his 
first  wife's  mother,  when  she  married  again,  had  chosen  someone 
with  a  more  rhythmic  name,  not  to  interfere  with  the  general  feel- 
ing of  the  foreground  and  middle  distance.  For,  you  see,  she  then 
provided  this  maiden  name  for  the  second  Mrs.  Alfred  Challis, 
whose  mother  she  was  also.  Mr.  Challis  had  married  his  deceased 
wife's  half-sister,  and  would  stand  condemned — presumably,  at 
least,  in  the  eyes  of  his  companion — for  bad  taste  certainly,  pos- 
sibly worse.  He  repeated  the  name,  rather  crisply,  in  correction  of 
Judith's  first  understanding  of  it  as  "Blake,"  but  never  a  word 
said  he,  there  and  then,  about  Marianne's  half-sistership  with  the 
original  of  "  Ziz."  Was  he  bound  to  say  anything? 

He  departed  to  his  room,  to  dress  for  dinner,  with  a  disjointed, 
incomplete- feeling  that  he  was  rather  glad  that  a  mere  au  revoir 
had  involved  no  handshake.  Could  he  have  trusted  himself  not  to 
emphasize  its  pressure  unduly?  Faugh! — where  was  the  sense  of 
such  an  imbecile  speculation,  or  the  need  for  it  ?  He  was  angry 
with  himself  for  the  thought — angry  at  the  way  he  had  enjoyed  his 
•walk  with  "  that  girl."  lie  brushed  her  off  his  mind  discourteously 
as  "that  girl."  Why,  he  had  only  known  her  a  couple  of  days! 
He  even  found  that  an  impulse  of  his  wanted  him  to  say,  "  Damn 
all  these  people!  What  are  they  to  me,  or  I  to  them,  that  they 
should  come  into  my  life,  and  make  hay  of  a  working  contentment 
I  have  never  dreamed  of  questioning  ? "  But  he  refused  to  say  it, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  75 

merely  noting  what  its  syntax  would  have  been  if  he  had  done  so. 
En  revanche,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  write  a  jolly  long  letter  to 
Marianne  to-night. 

The  other  party — though,  indeed,  it  is  hard  to  say  to  what — re- 
tired to  her  room  to  dress,  not  very  sorry  to  hear  that  Sibyl  was 
not  home  yet.  She  had  quite  made  up  her  mind  that  if  her  sister 
talked  any  nonsense  about  flirtations  with  married  men,  she  would 
speak  sharply  to  her — give  her  a  piece  of  her  mind.  But  she  hated 
rows.  So  if  the  motor-car  broke  down — and  it  was  pretty  sure  to — 
she  shouldn't  be  sorry.  In  a  day  or  two  she  was  going  up  to  Lon- 
don, and  would  go  straight  and  call  on  Mrs.  Challis,  the  Impossible 
one,  and  that  would  put  the  friendship  with  her  husband  on  a  foot- 
ing. She  would  wear  that  white  chiffon  and  the  pearls  again  this 
evening,  though;  she  had  looked  so  well  in  them  last  nigt. 

She  herself  was  conscious  of  no  inconsistency  in  the  half- 
formed  thoughts  that  passed  through  her  mind  as  she  stood  before 
a  mirror  waiting  for  her  maid  to  find  the  white  chiffon  instead  of 
the  black  satin;  which  Sharratt,  the  said  maid,  who  had  found  no 
male  in  the  company  to  allot  to  her  mistress,  had  placed  in  readi- 
ness on  speculation.  These  thoughts  can  be  told,  but  with  a  liberal 
discount.  She  was  not  the  kind  of  woman — so  they  ran — that 
made  mischief  in  families.  That  was  the  fascinating,  tender,  ser- 
pentine, insinuating  kind — Becky  Sharp,  in  fact.  Intellectual 
friendship  was  her  role — influence  over  men  of  genius  and  that  sort 
of  thing.  Was  Challis,  as  a  man  of  genius,  worth  practising  on? 
She  thought  he  might  be;  as  a  lay  figure,  at  any  rate,  if  not  for  a 
specific  purpose  which  crossed  her  mind  at  the  moment.  But  it 
was  to  be  stirred  aspirations,  roused  sympathies.  He  was  not  the 
man  to  be  worked  on  by  Vulgar  Beauty.  All  the  same,  Miss 
Judith  knew  what  she  was  going  to  look  like  in  this  mirror  when 
fully  draped,  when  the  majestic  swoop  of  skirts  should  quench  the 
abruptness  of  the  mere  petticoat.  Till  that  came,  she  could  fondle 
her  fine  arms  and  say  to  herself,  "  I'm  not  Becky  Sharp,  cer- 
tainly! But  to  think  of  the  mischief  I  could  do  if  I  put  my  mind 
to  it !  "  And  then  modesty  prompted  a  postscript,  "  Or  any  fairly 
good-looking  woman,  for  that  matter." 

This  story  has  no  insight  into  motives;  it  only  deals  with  ac- 
tions— at  least  when  motives  are  hard  to  get  at.  It  is  not  its  con- 
cern at  present  that  Judith  Arkroyd,  splendid  in  her  beauty  when 
she  chooses  to  make  the  most  of  it,  may  have  much  to  learn  about 
her  own  character — much  that  she  does  not  suspect  herself  of.  If 
she  does  not,  why  should  we? 


CHAPTER  VII 

OF  OTHER  GUESTS  AND  THEIR  TALK.  OF  A  SOFA-HAVEN  AND  HOW  MISS 
ARKROYD  PERCEIVED  THAT  MR.  CHALLIS  COULD  WRITE  A  TRAGEDY. 
BEAUTY  A  MATTER  OF  OPINION 

THE  party  that  assembled  that  evening  to  dinner  at  Royd  was 
smaller  than  usual,  owing  to  the  absence  of  the  motorists,  who  had 
not  returned.  Some  of  the  chits,  too — who  were  never  counted; 
they  were  always  "  those  girls  "  or  "  those  young  people  " — had  van- 
ished also,  taking  with  them  an  exactly  equal  number  of  male 
parallel  cases;  for  they  were  flirting  fair — there  was  to  be  no 
cheating!  Thus  it  came  about  that  the  ladies'  procession  to  the 
drawing-room  did  not  make  up  to  half-a-dozen,  and  the  men  they 
left  behind  to  smoke  only  just  did  so.  But  then,  it  was  easier  to 
talk,  because  there  was  less  noise. 

Scarcely  had  the  last  inch  of  the  last  lady,  regarded  as  a  total 
with  all  components  included,  disappeared  through  the  door,  when 
Mr.  Challis's  two  friends  of  the  morning  made  a  simultaneous 
rush  for  a  chair  on  either  side  of  him.  He  succumbed,  having  no 
alternative,  but  resolved  to  pay  absolutely  no  attention  to  anything 
they  said.  He  would  throw  his  whole  soul  into  the  enjoyment  of 
the  cigar  he  foresaw.  There  it  was — in  a  box  of  ivory  and  madre- 
perla  which  Sibyl  had  somehow  countenanced  into  existence,  with- 
out doing  anything  to  it  herself — being  brought  along  in  a  tray, 
abetted  by  cigarettes.  But  he  would  light  it  when  he  had  drunk  his 
coffee,  thank  you !  The  fact  was,  Mr.  Challis  was  acquiring  pres- 
ence of  mind,  and  did  not  spoil  his  opportunities  now  as  he  used 
to  do  formerly  when  the  world  of  toffs  was  new. 

Mr.  Brownrigg  the  Grauboschite  would  not  detain  Mr.  Challis 
more  than  one  moment  from  Mr.  Wraxall,  the  Universal  Insurer; 
no  more,  in  fact,  than  was  necessary  for  him  to  emphasize  a  con- 
sideration he  had  alluded  to  in  the  morning.  But  he  might  take 
this  opportunity  of  pointing  out  one  or  two  inevitable  inferences 
from  that  consideration  which  might  not  have  occurred  to  his 
hearer. 

He  was  better  than  his  word,  for  he  pointed  out  half-a-dozen  nt 

78 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  77 

least.  He  then  went  on  to  say  that  it  was  only  fair  on  his  part  to 
admit  the  plausibility  of  three  or  four  exceptions  that  he  was  well 
aware  had  been  taken  to  those  inferences.  But  he  was  prepared 
to  demonstrate  the  fallacy  of  each  of  these  on  many  different 
grounds,  the  least  of  which  would  be  fatal  to  the  pretensions  of 
his  opponents'  arguments  in  more  than  one  particular. 

If  he  had  stopped  there,  Mr.  Triptolemus  Wraxall  would  have 
gone  in  and  scored;  and,  indeed,  double-wicket  would  have  been 
quite  possible  if  Mr.  Brownrigg  would  have  played  according  to 
rule.  But  he  wouldn't.  Mr.  Wraxall  struggled  to  get  a  hit  and  a 
run,  but  scarcely  succeeded. 

As,  with  the  exception  of  Challis  and  one  or  two  others  who 
listened  and  looked  superior,  everyone  at  the  table  became  a  con- 
tributor of  a  vigorous  analysis,  an  irrefutable  demonstration,  an 
exhaustive  enumeration,  a  thoughtful  review,  an  indignant  pro- 
test or  a  brief  summary  of  essential  facts,  or  was  laying  stress 
upon  an  important  point  that  might  easily  be  lost  sight  of,  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  noise.  Challis  nearly  succeeded,  by  a  powerful 
effort,  in  abstracting  his  mind  from  it  and  enjoying  his  cigar. 
He  was  able  to  believe  that  he  only  resorted  to  a  speculation  as  to 
what  was  going  on  in  the  drawing-room  as  an  assistance  against 
all  this  chatter.  That  speculation  had  certainly  nothing  to  do 
with  any  particular  young  lady  whatever. 

But  a  drowsy  semi-abstraction  was  only  achievable  when  the 
components  of  the  Chaos  were  so  numerous  as  to  neutralize  each 
other,  becoming  a  sustained  inarticulate  roar.  The  moment  a 
single  speaker,  or  even  two,  became  audible  in  an  oasis  of  silence, 
Challis's  attention  was  caught  by  his  words,  and  divided  fairly  be- 
tween them  and  what  was  left  of  the  reveries  they  intruded  on. 
Such  an  oasis  was  reached,  as  far  as  Challis's  immediate  neigh- 
bours were  concerned,  about  half-way  through  his  cigar,  just  as  re- 
gret began  to  set  in  that  he  had  smoked  so  much  of  it. 

Now  it  happened  that  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes,  who  was  quite  unex- 
hausted, though  he  had  talked  all  day,  and  who  was  seated  on  the 
other  side  of  the  table,  had  at  that  moment  just  sketched  the  ex- 
tinction of  the  British  Empire  in  consequence  of  its  ill-advised 
persistence  in  all  the  dementia  of  all  the  States  that  Deus  ever 
voluit  perdere.  He  had  used  up  his  Latin  quotations,  including  the 
one  we  have  taken  a  liberty  with,  and  had  finished  with  a  beautiful 
picture  of  the  New  Zealander,  our  old  friend,  gazing  across  the  site 
of  vanished  London  from  Jack  Straw's  Castle,  and  murmuring  to 
himself,  "  Pericrunt  etiam  ruinae."  Happy  in  his  peroration,  the 
orator  sat  sustaining  a  fat  right  foot  on  a  fat  left  knee  with  a  fat 


78  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

left  hand.  His  fat  right  thumb  and  forefinger  held  a  permanent 
glass  of  port;  they  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  it  to  evaporate.  His 
attitude  was  unfavourable  to  his  figure,  as  it  laid  too  much  stress 
on  a  corporate  capacity  which  might  have  been  described  as 
pendant.  But  the  ensemble  was  majestic,  as  he  fixed  his  small 
but  piercing  eye  on  the  cornice  of  the  room  opposite,  grasping  the 
eyeglass  that  accompanied  it  with  what  almost  seemed  a  material- 
ized allusion  to  his  own  powerful  grasp  of  political  issues.  So  sit- 
ting, his  appearance  was  that  of  a  Mind,  giving  attentive  considera- 
tion to  most  things. 

"  The  disciple  of  Socrates,"  said  he,  with  a  decision  and  sudden- 
ness that  compelled  respectful  attention,  "turns  with  satisfaction 
from  the  contemplation  of  a  spectacle  that  might  well  arrest  the 
orgies  of  an  Epicurus,  or  soften  the  cynicism  of  a  Diogenes,  to  the 
fields  in  which  Speculation,  untrammelled  by  official  responsibility, 
deposits — if  I  may  be  permitted  the  simile — the  eggs  from  which 
will  emerge  (like  Minerva  from  the  brain  of  Jove)  the  fully- 
fledged  Politician  of  the  future." 

Here  an  expression  of  discontent  from  a  young  Lieutenant,  whose 
chit  was  in  the  drawing-room  awaiting  his  release,  distracted 
Challis's  attention  for  the  moment.  A  word  of  sympathy  elicited 
from  this  youth  that  he  had  a  private  grievance  against  Mr.  Tomes. 
"  You  wouldn't  like  it  any  more  than  I  do,  if  he  had  trod  on  your 
pup.  Poor  little  beggar's  only  a  month  old ! "  He  brooded  over 
this  injury  in  silence,  and  the  orator  again  became  audible.  He 
seemed  to  have  been  digressing. 

"  I  will  pursue  this  aspect  of  the  case  no  further,  but  will  re- 
turn to  the  subject  in  hand.  It  is  not,  I  hope,  necessary  for  me  to 
say,  at  this  table,  that  I  am  not  one  of  that  group  of  indiscriminate 
Thinkers  who  are  prepared  to  welcome  the  germination  of  the 
Political  Idea  in  the  crude  brain  of  every  Sciolist.  The  outcome 
of  such  a  surrounding  is  but  too  apt  to  out-Herod  Herod.  The 
medio  tutissimus  ibis,  the  procellas  cautus  horrescis  that  we  may 
suppose  to  have  guided  Caesar's  wife,  should  also  serve  as  a  beacon 
to  those  whose  ambition  it  is  to  deserve  the  gratitude  of  posterity." 
Challis  was  enjoying  the  cigar  too  much  to  ask — "Why  Caesar's 
wife?" 

Mr.  Tomes's  assumption  of  his  right  to  the  rostrum  was  so 
forcible  as  scarcely  to  allow  of  usurpation  while  he  was  visibly 
bolting  an  ad  interim  glass  of  port  with  a  view  to  going  on  again. 
Mr.  Brownrigg  chafed,  and  Mr.  Wraxall  stood  himself  over  in 
despair.  The  young  Lieutenant  murmured  a  prayer  to  any  Provi- 
dence that  would  shape  the  end  of  Mr.  Tomes's  speech,  and  help 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  79 

him  on  to  it.  There  seemed  no  hope.  So  he  thought  of  the  chit'3 
teeth  and  chin  in  self-defence.  Mr.  Tomes  swallowed  his  glass  of 
port  with  a  clear  conscience  about  its  non-evaporation — had  he  not 
given  it  every  opportunity  ? — and  resumed : 

"  I  must  not,  however,  allow  myself  to  be  led  away.  ..."  But 
he  had  to  pause  a  few  seconds,  to  remember  something  to  hare  been 
led  away  by.  Feeling  uncertain,  he  repeated :  "  I  must  not  allow 
myself  to  be  led  away  by  a  side-topic,  however  fascinating.  The 
maturity  of  Political  Thought  claims  our  attention.  Whether  we 
contemplate  the  vast  areas  of  controversy  laid  bare  to  the  scalpel 
of  the  Political  Analyst  in  connection  with  the  aspirations  of  the 
Socialist  pure  and  simple,  the  Anarchist  pure  and  simple,  or  the 
Nihilist  pure  and  simple,  or  differentiate  by  a  closer  scrutiny 
the  theories  of  the  Socialist-Anarchist,  the  Socialist-Nihilist,  or 
the  Nihilist- Anarchist,  we  are  driven  irresistibly  to  the  same  conclu- 
sion— that  Omniscience  is  still  in  its  infancy.  There  is  one  ele- 
ment which  all  schemes  for  the  Readjustment  of  the  Universe  have 
in  common — namely,  that  each  differs  on  some  vital  point  from  the 
whole  of  its  neighbours.  Do  not  let  us  be  discouraged  by  this. 
Let  us  rather  be  content  to  infer  from  it  the  dangers  that  await 
those  who  advocate  rash  departures  from  the  existing  order  of 
things,  and  to  recognize,  in  the  discrepancies  attendant  on  the  con- 
solidations of  Political  Opinion  in  the  thousand  and  one  groups 
into  which  it  crystallizes,  the  indisputable  fact  that  the  Index- 
finger  of  the  Political  Horizon  is  the  maintenance  of  the  status  quo. 
I  trust  I  make  myself  clearly  understood." 

Mr.  Tomes  did  not  mean  to  stop  for  some  time  yet,  but  breath 
was  necessary  to  him,  as  to  others,  and  he  had  got  blown  over  those 
groups  that  crystallized.  He  knew  that  his  last  words  would  make 
all  his  hearers  speak  at  once,  and  they  did.  In  the  Chaos  of  their 
joint  remark  was  concealed  a  statement  apiece  that  Mr.  Tomes 
had  most  lucidly  expounded  the  one  great  object  of  each  one's  sev- 
eral scheme,  and  that  the  existing  order  of  things  would  re- 
main thereby  much  more  truly  the  same — would  have  a  much  more 
heart-felt  identity  than  any  mere  banal  and  Philistine  letting-alone 
could  confer  upon  it.  The  choral  character  of  the  performance 
made  the  warning  check  of  Mr.  Tomes's  outspread  hand  plausible. 

"  Pardon  me  one  moment,"  said  he,  with  recovered  breath.  "  The 
point  I  wish  to  lay  stress  upon  is  this:  While  the  compass  of  the 
Political  Mariner  points  incontestably  to  the  dangers  of  quitting 
a  safe  anchorage,  the  Voice  of  Enlightenment  enjoins  that  all  new 
schemes  of  a  subversive  nature  should  be  looked  at  on  their  merits, 
and  rejected  on  their  merits.  This  is  what  I  understand  by  an  En- 


80  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lightened  Conservatism.  Rejection  without  examination  is  the 
programme  of  the  Mere  Bigot.  I  am  sure  Sir  Murgatroyd  will  ap- 
preciate my  meaning." 

Sir  Murgatroyd,  thus  appealed  to,  seized  his  opportunity,  and 
dexterously  annexed  the  rostrum.  He  contrived  to  embark  on  a 
trip  through  the  pamphlet  he  had  written,  which  claimed  for  Wil- 
liam the  Conqueror  the  position  of  the  earliest  pioneer  of  Socialism. 

Just  as  he  was  within  a  measurable  distance  of  his  demonstra- 
tion that  the  Feudal  System  contained  in  itself  solutions  of  all 
difficulties  such  as  the  present  age  meets  by  propounding  a  huge 
variety  of  remedies  and  calling  them  all  Socialism,  noises  of  arrival 
interrupted  him,  and  were  followed  by  an  incursion  of  the  motor- 
ists, very  tired  and  greedy,  after  a  delay  due  to  civilization,  which 
prescribes  soap  and  water  before  meals,  and  a  curb  on  one's  im- 
patience till  the  said  meals  can  be  laid  on  the  table.  The  absence 
of  snorts  without  occasioned  remark,  and  compelled  a  grudging 
disclosure  that  the  last  time  the  motor  broke  down  nothing  could 
bring  it  to  the  scratch  again;  and  it  had  been  left  behind  ten 
miles  off,  the  party  having  come  home  on  a  mean  hired  vehicle. 
Their  faith  that  this  breakdown  was  abnormal  and  exceptional, 
and  a  typical  example  of  the  sort  of  thing  that  never  occurs  again, 
was  touching  and  beautiful. 

Mr.  Triptolemus  Wraxall  was  glad  of  the  interruption.  He  had 
not  asserted  himself,  and  felt  that  he  was  a  mistake,  in  that 
society.  His  forms  of  thought  were  more  studious  and  reflective 
— sounder  altogether!  One  feels  this  when  one  has  not  asserted 
oneself,  and  bounced. 

Mr.  Brownrigg  was  sorry.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  to  point 
out  something,  but  had  not  quite  made  up  his  mind  what  it  was 
to  be;  merely  that  it  would  redound  to  the  credit  of  Graubosch. 
Why  should  not  he  point  out,  and  venture  to  call  your  attention  to, 
like  other  people?  However,  the  others  were  the  losers. 

Mr.  Challis  and  the  young  Lieutenant  were  both  very  glad,  but 
with  a  difference.  The  former  thought  fit,  for  some  reason,  to  rep- 
resent to  his  conscience  that  his  gladness  was  due  to  a  release  from 
intolerable  boredom,  and  certainly  had  nothing  to  do  with  any 
young  woman  in  the  drawing-room.  The  latter  made  no  bones 
about  it,  but  simply  ran,  the  moment  the  excuse  came.  Even  so 
would  the  little  beggar  Mr.  Tomes  trod  on  have  gone  for  a  saucer  of 
milk. 

Challis  passed  the  young  soldier  on  the  landing,  he  having  found 
bis  chit  on  the  bottom  stair  of  the  next  flight,  devoting  herself  to 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  81 

the  little  beggar,  who  had  not  been  welcomed  in  the  drawing-room, 
owing  to  human  prejudices.  The  chit  had  been  so  bored  in  the 
absence  of  her  counterchit,  as  the  Lieutenant  might  be  called, 
that  she  had  found  it  necessary  to  send  for  Cerberus.  That  was 
the  little  beggar's  baptismal  name.  Challis  passed  on  into  the 
drawing-room,  breathing  a  prayer  that  all  would  be  well.  What 
his  foreboding  was  we  do  not  know. 

He  thought  it  necessary  to  deny  his  own  accusation  against  him- 
self that  he  had  been  pleased  at  the  Lieutenant  running  on  in  front 
of  him  to  join  the  ladies  first,  that  he  might  thereby  seem  even- 
ininded  on  the  question  of  his  own  anxiety  to  do  so.  He  denied  it, 
and  to  satisfy  himself  of  the  strength  of  his  position,  walked  in 
indifferently.  He  emphasized  his  denial  by  spending  no  more  than 
a  remark  or  two  on  Lady  Arkroyd,  who,  he  thought,  showed  a  lack 
of  her  usual  cordiality,  as  though  she  had  read  a  disparaging  re- 
view. He  inquired  a  little  whether  she  found  the  ride  to  Thanes 
pleasant,  and  so  on;  and  then  went  at  once  to  the  other  end  of  her 
daughter's  sofa — not  a  very  long  one.  Indeed  he  could  hardly  do 
otherwise,  as  Judith  certainly  transferred  her  fine  eyes  from  him 
to  its  vacant  corner-cushion.  He  was  a  little  nettled  at  finding  he 
wanted  an  excuse  for  his  alacrity. 

We  have  read  in  some  novel  that  the  reason  women  are  so  fond 
of  unprincipled  men  is  that  they  know  the  latter  can  and  will  en- 
joy their  society  thoroughly,  and  never  vex  their  souls  with  any 
questions  as  to  what  that  society  may  mean  or  lead  to  for  either 
of  them.  They,  the  women,  will  do  the  drawing  the  line,  and  that 
sort  of  thing.  Why  be  prigs?  Now  Challis  was  scarcely  a  prig, 
and  he  was  certainly  not  an  unprincipled  man.  If  he  had  been 
the  one,  he  would  have  thought  much  more  talk  necessary  with  the 
mother  before  monopolizing  the  daughter;  if  the  other,  his  choice 
of  a  satisfaction  would  have  been  as  candid  as  his  young  soldier's 
had  been — as  the  little  beggar's  always  was.  Whether  the  authoress 
of  this  novel  was  talking  wisely  or  not,  who  shall  say?  Broadly 
speaking,  profligates  are  better  company  than  prigs.  Cceteris 
paribus,  mind  you ! 

This  is  all  by  the  way;  will  very  likely  be  deleted  before  this 
present  writing  goes  to  press.  Miss  Arkroyd  was  certainly  not  un- 
der any  necessity  to  speculate  on  the  matter.  She  knew  perfectly 
well  that  Mr.  Challis,  married  man  or  no,  was  going  to  anchor  at 
the  far  end  of  her  sofa  as  soon  as  he  had  got  through  that  silly 
pretence  of  chatting  with  her  mother.  And  she  had  retired  from 
a  colloquy  with  this  same  mother — whose  influence  was  not  strong 
over  her,  and  with  whom  something  had  disagreed,  she  thought — 


82  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

with  that  end  in  view.  Sibyl  wasn't  here,  with  her  nonsense,  and 
she  should  do  as  she  liked.  Nay,  more! — she  would  at  once  say 
something  to  show  her  independence  of  Sibyl's  nonsense. 

"  We  thought  you  were  never  coming  up."  She  decided  to  make 
it  we,  not  7,  on  the  whole.  Challis's  vanity  suspected  the  substitu- 
tion, recognizing  in  it  a  maiden-of-the-world's  prudence,  and  ap- 
plauded it.  But  a  recollection  of  what  a  letter  he  was  going  to 
write  to  Marianne  prompted  a  protest.  He  couldn't  afford  to  enjoy 
his  position  too  much,  without  loss  of  self-respect.  How  important 
one's  self-respect  is! 

"We  were  having  some  very  interesting  talk  about  Politics. 
Your  brother  and  sister  and  Lord  Felixthorpe  came  back  and  in- 
terrupted it."  There  was  great  detachment  in  this,  but  it  was 
overdone;  too  much  like  "pointing  out"  to  a  polypus  that  his  ten- 
tacles were  slipping. 

Ought  her  response,  thought  Judith,  to  show  pique  at  her 
quarry's  independence — at  his  contentment  to  be  away  from  her 
society?  Much  too  soon! — was  her  verdict,  passed,  but  not 
formulated.  It  would  be  just  like  a  girl  in  her  first  season.  And 
she  had  not  known  this  man  much  above  forty-eight  hours.  She 
was  not  going  to  behave  like  that  child  in  the  passage,  whose 
pretty  sing-song  voice  chimed  with  her  young  soldier's  outside  when 
Challis  opened  the  door  to  come  in  just  now.  Judith  felt  certain 
what  she  was  saying  was  "  I  was  so  saw-ry  for  you  having  to  talk 
Pawlitics  when  you  might  have  been  up  here  with  me  and  this 
dahling  pup."  Her  imagination  committed  itself  to  the  words, 
musical  drawl  and  all;  but  negatived  this  sort  of  thing  in  her  own 
case. 

"  I  should  like  to  have  been  there  to  hear  it,"  she  said.  "  What 
were  they  talking  about?  The  usual  thing,  I  suppose? " 

Challis  felt  she  was  an  honourable  polypus,  in  whose  tentacles 
he  could  trust  himself.  "I  can't  say,"  said  he.  "I'm  too  recent 
to  know  what  is  or  isn't  usual.  You'll  hear  the  supplement  im- 
mediately. There  they  are,  coming  upstairs ! " 

The  lady  remained  silent,  listening  handsomely.  The  thought 
in  Challis's  mind — to  the  effect  that  she  was  the  antipodes  of 
Marianne,  in  looks — was  so  irrelevant  and  inappropriate  that  he 
gave  it  notice  to  quit,  incontinently.  But  he  could  not  serve  the 
notice  without  admitting  possession.  He  could,  though,  as  a  per 
contra,  do  a  little  mechanical  forecasting  of  his  letter  to  Marianne. 
Yea — his  course  was  clear;  he  would  tell  his  wife  how  absurdly  \\r\- 
like  her  in  all  respects  this  queenly  young  woman  was;  might 
even  go  the  length  of  wondering  how  the  partner  of  Tier  joys  and 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  83 

sorrows  would  be  able  to  live  with  so  much  dignity  always  taking 
place  in  his  neighbourhood.  Would  that  be  like  reminding  Mari- 
anne of  her  homeliness,  though?  Oh  no! — he  would  take  care  of 
that.  Still,  if  Marianne  had  been  just  one  shade  less  homely,  it 
would  have  been  easier.  Never  mind ! 

The  voices  on  the  stairs  gathered  audibility.  Oh  yes! — there 
•was  papa  and  the  Feudal  System.  Judith  could  hear  that,  plain 
enough.  How  sick  she  was  of  William  the  Conqueror!  And  Mr. 
Tomes,  of  course,  just  as  usual !  But  we  mustn't  speak  too  loud, 
or  Mrs.  Tomes  would  hear.  What  a  fool  that  woman  was!  But 
Mr.  Challis  didn't  know  her.  He  must  do  so,  in  the  interests  of 
his  next  book.  All  which,  in  a  voice  dropped  to  confidence-point, 
tended  to  engage  Mr.  Challis's  cogs — the  simile  is  an  engineering 
one — in  Miss  Arkroyd's  wheel. 

What  was  that  Mr.  Tomes  was  saying?  Something  or  other 
was  to  be  relegated  to  the  Limbo  of  departed  something-elses.  If 
only  those  young  people  wouldn't  make  such  a  noise  with  the 
puppy,  we  should  hear!  Why  were  things  always  relegated  tc 
Limbos,  and  why  was  nothing  ever  sent  to  Limbos  except  by  relega- 
tion ?  The  question  was  Challis's.  But  he  was  talking  at  random, 
for  reasons.  So  was  Judith,  perhaps,  when  she  said  absently :  "  I 
have  noticed  that,  too."  She  was  listening  carefully  to  hear  if  her 
sister  and  her  co-motorists  were  following.  "  I  suppose  they  all 
came  in  famished,"  she  added. 

"  Didn't  you  see  them  when  they  came  in  ? " 

« I  heard  them." 

"  Didn't  they  sound  famished  ? " 

"  Not  especially.  I  didn't  pay  much  attention.  As  long  as  no 
bones  are  broken.  .  .  .  They  won't  be  coming  up  for  some  time 
yet."  There  was  in  her  voice  a  very  clear  implication  of  relief. 
The  inference  was  that  we,  in  this  sofa-haven,  should  not  be  dis- 
turbed. Its  correctness  was  soon  manifest.  No  two  oratorically- 
disposed  gentlemen,  well  wound  up,  ever  disturb  a  chat  in  a  cor- 
ner, further  than  mere  shouting  goes.  And  Sir  Murgatroyd  and 
the  sitting  member  for  Grime  were  wound  up  to  a  high  pitch  of 
agreement  about  what  constituted  an  Enlightened  Conservatism, 
and  each  was  anxious  to  supply  the  next  link  in  the  chain  of  Syl- 
logism, and  get  the  credit  of  it.  So  they  shouted  against  each 
other  all  the  way  upstairs,  and  only  lulled  very  slightly  when  they 
reached  the  drawing-room. 

Mr.  Brownrigg  and  Mr.  Wraxall,  on  the  other  hand,  were  aitx 
grands  eprises  on  a  vital  question — never  mind  what;  nobody 
knew  or  cared ! — which  underlay  the  whole  of  their  argument.  Mr. 


84  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Wraxall  had  been  unable  to  permit  an  inference  of  Mr.  Brown- 
rigg's  to  pass  unchallenged,  and  Mr.  Brownrigg  had  impugned  the 
data  on  which  Mr.  Wraxall's  objections  were  founded.  Mr. 
Wraxall  had  replied  that  something  or  other  had  been  clearly  laid 
down  as  a  safe  principle  by  Baker,  and  Mr.  Brownrigg  had  pointed 
out  that  the  fallacy  of  Baker's  assumptions  had  been  exhaustively 
dealt  with  by  Smith.  Mr.  Wraxall  had  counter-pointed  out  that 
Smith's  penetrating  insight  into  everything  else  had  led  him  into 
error  in  this  one  particular;  and  had  laid  stress  upon  the  fact  that 
Hopkins,  the  weight  of  whose  opinion  it  was  impossible  to  deny, 
had  endorsed  the  opinions  of  Baker.  Mr.  Brownrigg  had  then  be- 
come patronizing,  and  went  so  far  as  to  warn  Mr.  Wraxall  not  to  be 
led  away  by  the  plausibility  of  Hopkins.  Who  then,  being  a  weak 
controversialist,  had  rashly  appealed  to  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  to 
countenance  the  authority  of  Hopkins.  But  that  gentleman  only 
gave  a  weighty  shake  to  a  judicial  head,  claiming  at  once  profound 
thought  in  the  past,  and  forecasting  just  censure  to  come.  He 
feared  that  the  insidious  ratiocinations  of  Hopkins  were  a  rock  we 
all  split  upon  in  the  forest  of  youth,  and  an  ignis  fatuus  to  mislead 
the  mariner  in  the  ocean  of  dialectical  difficulty  that  chequered 
our  steps  in  later  life. 

The  controversy,  of  which  the  foregoing  is  a  condensation,  had 
passed  the  quarrelsome  point  when  the  disputants  arrived  in  the 
drawing-room,  shutting  out  the  melodious  trill  of  the  chit,  the 
squeaks  of  the  little  beggar,  and  the  lieutenant's  bass  voice,  say- 
ing, "  He  and  the  kitten  were  having  a  high  old  time  with  my 
boots  early  this  morning."  The  argument  was  in  the  mutual- 
amends  stage,  and  Mr.  Brownrigg  was  enlarging  on  the  enthralling 
and  irresistible  fascination  of  Hopkins's  style,  while  Mr.  Wraxall 
was  equally  eloquent  on  the  almost  Nicholsonian  vigour  and  ex- 
pansiveness  of  Smith's.  They  were  then  separated,  and  presently 
the  insurer  was  audible  afar,  enlarging  to  Lady  Arkroyd  on  a 
scheme  for  insuring  against  damage  at  the  Wash,  in  which  she 
was  much  interested;  while  the  Grauboschite  was  mentioning  some 
further  details  of  that  great  man's  system  to  Mrs.  Ramsey  Tomes. 
Who,  however,  only  said :  "  I  think  my  husband  would  like  to  hear 
that,"  or  "  Have  you  mentioned  that  to  Mr.  Tomes  ?  "  but  gave  no 
sign  of  receiving,  or  of  ever  having  in  her  life  received,  an  idea 
on  her  own  account.  The  Baronet  and  the  M.P.  simply  went  on, 
like  the  water  coming  in  when  the  ball-cock  has  stuck,  and  nobody 
will  be  at  work  till  Monday. 

All  this  is  only  to  impress  on  the  story  the  quiet  of  that  sofa- 
haven,  and  to  justify  Judith  for  feeling  practically  out  of  reach  of 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  85 

interruption  if  she  should  be  inclined  to  carry  on  the  skein-twist- 
ing a  little  prematurely — that  is,  without  waiting  for  a  visiting  ac- 
quaintance with  the  probably  plebeian  wife,  to  put  her  friendship 
with  the  husband  on  an  ascertained  footing.  Now  Judith  was  not 
without  a  well-defined  motive  for  the  skein-twisting,  as  was  hinted 
at  the  end  of  our  last  chapter.  We  rather  think  that  if  she  had  not 
been  she  would  have  suspected  something  abnormal  in  Challis's 
matrimonies  from  his  manner  when  he  said  "  Craik."  Women  are 
as  sharp  as  all  that — oh  dear,  yes ! 

After  a  little  discursive  chat  to  make  sure  that  no  floating  in- 
terruption would  desert  the  other  group-units  and  bear  down  on 
their  haven,  Judith  was  seized  with  a  sudden  intense  apprehen- 
sion that  Mr.  Challis  could  write  a  tragedy.  She  can  have  had  very 
slight  grounds  for  this  conclusion ;  she  had  almost  no  knowledge 
of  that  author's  work,  as  we  have  seen.  But  she  relied  on  his  van- 
ity to  make  him  take  an  easy-going  view  of  any  claims  she  had 
to  pronounce  him  Shakespeare.  Pleasing  verdicts  soothe  the 
cavils  of  incredulous  modesty,  and  suggest  unsuspected  data  in  the 
bush.  But  he  was  bound  to  make  some  sort  of  protest.  It  would 
never  do  to  say  he  rather  thought  he  could. 

"  What  makes  you  thiiak  that  ?  "  he  said. 

"  I  can't  say.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  anything  I  have  read 
of  yours.  I  think  it  is  something  in  yourself  makes  me  think  so." 
It  was  as  well  to  head  off  any  discussion  of  what  she  had  read; 
and  an  ounce  of  personality  is  worth  a  ton  of  mere  evasion.  The 
fine  eyes  examined  Mr.  Challis's  intelligent  brow  carefully  to  see 
what  it  was  in  himself  that  made  their  owner  think  so.  His  own 
watched  them  as  though  expecting  their  conclusion  would  be 
registered  shortly. 

"  I  have  written  a  couple  of  comedies,"  said  he,  to  help.  "  But 
no  tragedy,  so  far."  And  from  thence  a  certain  reality  crept  into 
the  conversation,  which  up  to  that  moment  had  been  rather 
words  for  words'  sake,  or,  perhaps  it  should  be  said,  for  their 
speaker's  sake.  For  so  much  talk  that  sets  up  to  be  interchange  of 
ideas  is  uttered  to  convince  the  speakers  they  are  conversing,  and 
to  make  them  plausible  to  themselves  and  each  other. 

"  You  have  written  for  the  stage,  then.  That  is  what  I  meant. 
Have  you  had  anything  performed  yet?  Forgive  my  not  know- 
ing." 

"There  is  nothing  to  know  that  you  could  have  known.  One 
of  the  comedies,  '  Aminta  Torrington,'  is  to  come  out  after  Christ- 
mas. The  other,  'Widow's  Island,'  is  on  the  shelf.  Nobody  ap- 
preciates it." 


86 

"  Do  you  see  a  great  deal  of  theatrical  people  ? "  Now,  Challis 
had  wanted  the  eyes  to  be  interested  about  his  plays — to  abet  the 
speaker  in  a  curiosity  she  ought  to  have  felt.  But  no  matter:  that 
would  wait. 

"  I  see  a  great  many.  What  makes  you  ask  in  such  an  interested 
way?" 

"  Because  I  want  to  know.  I  have  a  reason.  I'll  tell  you  some- 
time." Whereat  the  mercury  in  the  thermometer  of  this  lady  and 
gentleman's  intimacy  went  up  a  degree  distinctly.  So  much  was 
implied  in  the  word  "  sometime,"  Not  very  easy  to  summarize, 
certainly — but  there,  all  the  same!  It  ratified  anticipation  of 
future  intercommunications,  on  the  surface  of  it.  Also,  it  hinted 
at  confidences  to  come.  But  let  us  be  just  to  Judith  here.  She 
never  meant  it  as  another  wind  of  the  skein.  She  was  honestly 
unconscious  this  time,  thinking  frankly  of  an  interest  of  her  own. 
She  continued :  "  Tell  me  a  good  deal  about  them.  Why  doesn't 
one  know  more  of  them  ? " 

"I  didn't  know  one  didn't.  That's  nonsense,  or  sounds  very 
like  it.  But  we  know  what  we  mean.  I'll  state  it  clearly,  to  save 
trouble.  The  question  is,  'Why  do  swell  young  women  that  are 
presented  at  Court,  and  go  to  balls  in  the  season,  and  sit  in  car- 
riages at  Ascot,  and  see  polo-matches  at  Hurlingham,  and  get  mar- 
ried at  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square'  ...  is  that  right  so 
far?  .  .  ." 

"  That  will  do  very  well,  at  any  rate."  Judith  said  this  without 
a  laugh,  where  there  might  have  been  one.  "  Go  on,  Mr.  Challis." 

"  Why  does  this  sort  of  young  woman  not  meet  more  actresses 
and  actors  in  the  society  she  lives  in?  Well,  I  can  tell  you  the 
answer — at  least,  I  can  tell  you  my  opinion,  if  you  ask  it." 

"Yes,  I  do.    What  is  it?" 

"  They  are  always  at  the  play,  the  actors  and  actresses,  either  on 
the  stage  or  in  the  boxes.  Or  the  pit.  Or  the  gallery.  I  can't 
answer  for  the  whole  profession.  But  that's  my  experience." 

"  I  have  always  been  told  they  were  so  disreputable.     Are  they  ?  " 

"  My  dear  Miss  Arkroyd,  what  a  very  old-fashioned  idea ! " 
Challis  laughed  outright.  "  No ! — they  are  just  like  everybody  else 
as  to  manners  and  morals,  and  that  sort  of  thing.  They  are  not 
monks  and  nuns,  certainly.  But  such  a  many  folk  are  not  that." 

Judith  looked  at  him  doubtfully.  Was  not  that  rather  the  way 
men  sometimes  talk,  throwing  dust  in  the  eyes  that  want  to  distin- 
guish right  from  wrong?  Monks  and  nuns,  as  we  all  know,  are 
people  that  want  to  deprive  you  and  me  of  cakes  and  ale.  But 
what  is  meant  by  cakes  and  ale?  She  would  push  a  test  question 


87 

home.  If  Mr.  Challis  had  a  grown-up  daughter,  she  asked,  would 
he  let  her  go  on  the  stage,  if  she  wished  it  very  much,  and  had  a 
turn  for  it?  Of  course  he  would,  was  his  answer,  without  hesita- 
tion. Why  should  he  not?  This  seemed  to  decide  Judith  on  an 
extension  of  confidence. 

"  I  will  tell  you  why  I  am  asking.  I  know  a  girl  .  .  .  well !  I 
should  say  woman  .  .  .  who  wants  to  go  on  the  stage.  But  it 
seems  impossible.  What  her  capabilities  would  be  I  cannot  say. 
But  it  seems  hard  that  she  should  be  unable  to  give  them  a  trial." 

"Why  cannot  she?" 

"  Her  family  oppose  it ;  or  rather,  she  knows  they  would  oppose 
it  if  the  proposal  took  form.  At  present  she  only  knows  that  they 
treat  the  idea  with  derision — as  something  hardly  worth  ridicule." 

"  But  why  ? — if  she  has  it  at  heart." 

"Respectability.  Position.  Balls  in  the  season.  Carriages  at 
Ascot.  St.  George's,  Hanover  Square.  Family,  in  short !  " 

"  Tell  me  more  about  this  friend.  Why  does  she  suppose  she 
has  qualifications?  She  must  have  had  some  experience  to  con- 
vince her  ? " 

Judith  stopped  to  consider  a  few  seconds.  "  Yes,  I  can  tell  you 
that,"  she  said.  "  She  played  in  the  '  Antigone '  a  couple  of  years 
ago.  You  know  my  brother  and  his  friends  played  it  in  London, 
and  got  the  female  parts  played  by  women.  Of  course,  at  Cam- 
bridge it  was  the  boys  themselves." 

"  Did  you  think  her  performance  good  ? " 

Judith  sticks  a  little  over  her  answer,  but  it  comes.  "  Not  per- 
fectly satisfactory — not  to  me,  at  least.  But  everyone  else  spoke 
so  well  of  it  that  I  may  have  been  mistaken." 

"Yet  you  would  encourage  her  to  make  a  very  hazardous  ex- 
periment, and  to  incur  the  displeasure  of  her  family,  on  the 
strength  of  no  more  than  what  you  now  tell  me.  Do  allow  me  to 
say  that  your  friend  ought  to  have  more  experience  ..." 

"  She  ought  to  keep  out  of  the  water  till  she  can  swim,"  Judith 
struck  in.  "  I  know  the  sort  of  thing.  What  people  always  say ! 
But  can  you  wonder  that  she  thinks  it  hard  that  she  isn't  allowed 
to  go  in  at  the  shallow  end  of  a  swimming-bath;  and  all  because 
of  the  merest  Mrs.  Grundy  ? " 

"  Not  quite  the  merest  Mrs.  Grundy.  Moderately  mere,  suppose 
we  say !  The  actress  who  fails  is  in  a  sorry  plight  ..." 

"  She  wouldn't  fail."  Judith  interrupted  again,  a  little  im- 
patiently. "  At  least — I  mean — she  wouldn't  fail  altogether.  But, 
of  course,  she  would  take  her  chance  of  that.  Why  should  she  not 
try,  if  she  chooses  to  run  the  risk  ? " 


88  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Challis  was  watching  her  image  in  a  mirror  as  she  said  this,  and 
thought  he  saw  a  blush-rose  tinge  creeping  over  the  cheek.  Surely 
she  was  taking  this  friend's  case  very  much  to  heart.  An  idea 
crossed  his  mind,  and  he  schemed  a  test  of  its  truth — a  question 
he  would  ask. 

"Is  she  beautiful?     That  would  help  matters." 

The  eyes  in  the  mirror  turned,  and  Challis  had  to  withdraw  his 
own  suddenly.  You  know  how  one  feels  caught,  when  a  reflection 
in  a  glass  suddenly  transfixes  one  ?  It  is  like  conviction  of  treach- 
ery— quite  unlike  the  direct  transaction  analogous  to  it.  But  he 
need  not  have  been  so  conscious;  as  he  saw,  when  a  furtive  glance 
back  showed  him  that  the  reflection  was  not  looking  at  him,  but  at 
Miss  Arkroyd,  at  her  corner  of  the  sofa. 

"  Beauty  is  so  much  a  matter  of  opinion,"  said  sha  "  No  doubt 
she  herself  is  convinced  her  allowance  of  it  is  enough  for  working 
purposes."  She  stopped  a  moment,  listening  to  sounds  approach- 
ing— the  motor-party  audible  on  the  stairs.  Then,  as  she  began 
to  get  up  from  the  sofa,  she  said  quickly,  "  If  you  think  you  can 
be  of  any  use  to  her — with  introductions  and  so  on — I  will  tell  you 
who  she  is.  Sometime;  not  now.  There  they  are!  "  The  inter- 
view was  at  an  end,  and  Challis  prepared  to  merge  in  a  world  he 
was  sure  would  be  less  interesting.  However,  he  felt  some  curi- 
osity to  hear  the  tale  of  the  motor  disaster. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

OF  HOW  NO  ACCIDENT  HAD  REALLY  HAPPENED  TO  THE  MOTOR-CAR.  OF 
A  COMBAT  BETWEEN  TWO  SISTERS,  CHIEFLY  ABOUT  THOSE  OF 
PEOPLE'S  DECEASED  WIVES.  OF  FLIRTATIONS  WITH  MARRIED  MEN. 
HOW  CHALLIS  WROTE  A  LONG  AMUSING  LETTER  TO  MARIANNE 

THE  chit  and  her  young  officer  felt  unequal  to  remaining  outside, 
against  the  tidal  wave  of  the  returned  motorists.  Occasional  sus- 
pension is  necessary  to  the  greediest  flirtation,  to  give  it  a  flavour 
of  stolenness;  else  it  loses  its  character,  and  palls.  This  is  our 
surmise  as  to  why  these  young  people  allowed  themselves  to  be 
swept  into  the  drawing-room  by  the  current.  Cerberus  seemed  to 
have  been  withdrawn.  It  is  not  necessary  to  the  story  to  know 
rvhether  the  little  beggar  had  or  had  not  disappointed  his  backers. 
No  questions  were  asked. 

The  way  in  which  the  motor-party  ignored  their  accident  was 
more  like  the  concerted  vigour  of  artillerymen  in  charge  of  a  gun 
than  any  mere  philosophical  submission  to  the  will  of  Fate.  Prac- 
tically the  machine's  twenty-horse-power  had  brought  them  in  tri- 
umph to  the  door  exactly  at  the  time  appointed.  A  trivial  ex- 
cursion into  non-fulfilment  of  its  destiny  was  not  the  poor  motor's 
fault,  nor  its  inventor's,  nor  its  maker's,  nor  its  chauffeur's.  It 
was  all  due  to  a  little  bit  of  original  sin  in  the  heart  of  a  hexagon 
nut,  which,  having  heard  that  the  only  key  that  it  could  be  got  at 
with  was  mislaid,  immediately  went  slack.  It  resisted  the  im- 
portunities of  a  screw-hammer,  and  demanded  a  box-key.  Like 
some  minute  organism  of  humanity — a  spiteful  medulla  oblongaia. 
say! — endowed  with  powers  of  striking  work,  it  had  paralyzed  the 
whole  structure.  But,  unlike  the  medulla  oblongata,  it  could  be  set 
right  in  five  minutes  as  soon  as  we  had  a  proper  box-key.  There- 
fore it  was  as  clear  as  noonday  that  the  mishap,  as  an  incident  in 
the  History  of  Motoring,  hadn't  happened  at  all.  It  was  by-play — 
didn't  count ! 

The  expedition  had  been  a  great  success.  Its  object  had  been  at- 
tained; like  that  of  the  scout  who  locates  the  enemy,  but  leaves  his 
horse  behind.  When  you  have  seen  premises  that  are  the  very 
thing,  what  does  it  matter  how  you  get  home?  For  the  pur- 
poses of  the  Great  Idea,  these  premises  were  the  very  thing. 

8ft 


90  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Three  large  waterwheels,  one  overshot,  ninety-four-horse- 
power in  all,  and  the  most  glorious  oak-  and  beechwoods  coming 
down  to  the  waterside.  And  the  most  interesting  fourteenth- 
century  pound  William  Eufus  had  ever  seen.  He  and  his  friend 
Scipio  were  fascinated  with  the  place,  and  enthusiastic  about  the 
Great  Idea.  But  while  apt  to  feel  pique  at  any  doubt  thrown  on 
the  wisdom  of  the  scheme,  the  latter  was  not  prepared  to  forego 
the  luxury  of  making  fun  of  it  himself. 

"  No  historical  associations,"  said  he,  with  perfect  deliberation  of 
manner,  "  could  supply  a  more  healthy  stimulus  to  the  production 
of  what  I  believe  are  called  Art  Objects.  The  church,  a  most  in- 
teresting example  of  several  styles,  has  been  judiciously  restored 
in  one — I  forget  which — and  the  castle,  some  portions  of  which  are 
previous  to  something  very  early — I  forget  what " 

"  Suppose  you  shut  up,  Scip,"  said  his  friend.  "  You're  never 
in  earnest  about  anything.  No — it  really  is  the  most  delightful 
place  I've  ever  seen.  You  wouldn't  look  so  scornful  if  you  could 
see  it,  Ju.  And  as  for  its  suitability,  I  don't  see  how  there  can  be 
any  question  about  that." 

His  sister  Sibyl's  practical  mind — her  manner  laid  claim  to  one 
— went  straight  on  to  details.  "  The  only  thing,"  she  said,  "  that 
I  didn't  see  a  place  for  was  the  ivorycarver'  shop." 

"  Couldn't  one  of  those  places  in  the  roof  be  converted  ? "  her 
brother  asked. 

"  Too  hot  in  the  summer,"  said  Sibyl  decisively.  "  I  can  see 
the  weaving-sheds,  and  the  jewellery-shops,  and  the  bookbinder's 
department,  and  the  printing-house,  and  the  woodblock-cutter's  lit- 
tle shop  round  by  the  stairs,  and  the  ceramic  works — (only  we 
really  must  be  sure  that  chimney-shaft  will  be  any  good) — and  the 
bronze-casters,  and  the  printed  fabrics,  and  the  type-writing  de  luxe 
for  private  circulation."  She  checked  off  each  department  on  her 
fingers,  imagining  clearly — so  Mr.  Challis,  who  was  watching  her, 
thought — the  place  in  which  it  was  to  be  located.  Then  she  came 
to  her  exception — "  But  where  on  earth  these  tiresome  ivory- 
carvers  are  to  be  put  I  can't  imagine ! " 

Her  brother,  with  perfect  gravity,  accepted  the  difficulty  as  one 
to  be  wrestled  with.  "  I  don't  see  why  they  need  be  downstairs  at 
all,"  said  he.  "Why  not  put  them  in — well! — if  not  in  the  roof, 
why  not  in  that  room  beyond  the  Art-needlework  schools?" 

"  We  can't  conveniently  have  boys  and  young  men  passing  and 
repassing."  Sibyl  was  giving  it  serious  thought;  no  doubt  of 
that !  She  added  with  conviction :  "  We  shall  have  to  build  in  the 
end ;  so  we  may  as  well  look  the  matter  in  the  face." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  91 

"  What  do  you  want  with  ivorycarvers  ? "  Thus  Judith,  with  a 
near  approach  to  a  yawn.  It  never  came  off,  owing  to  good  breed- 
ing; but  Mr.  Challis  noted  to  himself  that  it  would  have  been 
statuesque  had  it  done  so.  Marianne's  yawn  was  not  statuesque. 
He  could  recall  cases  in  point.  .  .  .  What  had  that  to  do  with 
the  matter,  by-the-bye?  Challis  brushed  it  away  by  joining  in  a 
murmur  of  half-protest  against  Judith's  question.  The  world 
was  listening  interested  to  the  evolution  of  the  Great  Idea.  Poli- 
tics had  slacked  down — to  give  it  a  turn.  And  the  world  per- 
ceived, in  a  doubt  thrown  on  the  necessity  for  ivory  carving,  a 
dangerous  phase  of  criticism  that  might  undermine  the  whole 
scheme. 

Sibyl  said,  with  decisive  resignation,  "  Oh  dear ! — how  exactly 
like  you  that  is,  Ju !  "  And  her  brother,  "  That's  Judith  all  over." 
Then  both  asked  a  mixed  question,  equivalent  to — If  not  ivory 
carvers,  why  not  not  anything?  Why  not  no  jewelery? — no  art 
needlework? — no  hammered  metal  or  wood  carving?  The  world's 
murmur  of  half-protest — so  Challis  thought — had  really  less  to  do 
with  the  demerits  of  the  cavil  it  condemned  than  with  the  ob- 
viousness of  the  answer  to  it.  A  mob  is  apt  to  mistake  its  self- 
gratulation  at  having  perceived  something  for  agreement  with  the 
thing  it  has  perceived.  Folk  sing  below  par  in  unison,  and  no  one 
cares  much  which  way  he  votes  in  a  plebiscite.  This  is  what  Mr. 
Challis  thought,  not  a  remark  of  the  text.  He  resolved  to  put  it  in 
his  next  book. 

"  I  am  in  a  minority."  Judith  dropped  her  fine  eyelids  with  a 
hint  in  the  action  of  formal  surrender,  as  one  strikes  a  banner. 
"  Even  Mr.  Challis  has  deserted  me ! "  Challis  said,  "  Not  al- 
together. I'm  a  trimmer  playing  fast  and  loose.  A  sort  of  plaid, 
like  Sam  Weller."  But  he  had  not  understood  his  monde.  It  was 
one  that  knew  nothing  about  Sam  Weller. 

The  rest  of  the  company — all  but  the  chit  and  counterchit — 
showed  a  disposition  to  talk  to  each  other  of  conditions  necessary 
to  be  observed  in  the  sudden  inauguration  of  complex  undertak- 
ings, these  conditions  touching  points  familiar  to  the  speaker,  but 
not  within  the  experience  of  others.  Each  would  call  Mr.  Ark- 
royd's  attention  to  a  danger  ahead,  or  an  advantage  to  be  attained 
by  well-advised  foresight,  as  early  as  possible  to-morrow,  so  that 
Opportunity  might  be  taken  by  the  forelock. 

Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  enjoined  caution  before  all  things.  He 
spoke  as  one  having  a  monopoly  of  prudent  instincts,  to  the 
exclusion  of  a  rash  planetful  of  fellow-creatures,  or  as  the  voice  of 
one  crying  "  Beware ! "  in  the  wilderness  of  pitfalls  Don't-care 


92  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

neglected,  with  such  fatal  consequences.  He  suggested,  like  the 
father  of  him  who  slew  the  Jabberwock,  that  he  who  only  took  suffi- 
cient heed  was  certain  of  success — need  not  make  any  positive  ef- 
forts— could  go  on  rather  better  without  them.  One  would  have 
thought  he  meant — Mr.  Challis  did  think — that  any  commentator 
so  cautious  as  never  to  open  a  volume  was  well  half-way  to  a  tri- 
umph of  exegesis,  and  that  Columbus  would  have  discovered 
America  all  the  quicker  if  he  had  stopped  at  home.  The  story, 
Mr.  Tomes  concluded,  of  the  failure  of  the  plethora  of  rash  en- 
terprises that  were  our  inheritance  from  an  otherwise  glorious 
Past  would  fill  a  volume.  Mr.  Challis  thought  to  himself  that  this 
was  unworthy  of  its  author — rather  an  anticlimax.  But '  Mr. 
Tomes  was  sleepy. 

In  fact,  it  was  getting  late,  and  a  sense  of  impending  adjourn- 
ment was  vitiating  the  discussion:  a  little  pitted  speck  in  the 
garnered  fruits  of  its  intelligence  was  growing,  and  a  period  of 
sleepy  incapacity  was  in  sight.  Winding-up  remarks  became  fre- 
quent, such  as  "  We  shall  have  to  think  all  that  over,"  or  "  We  must 
settle  this,  that,  and  the  other  first,  before  anything  practical  can 
be  done,"  or  "  One  thing's  certain,  at  any  rate  " — this  last  being  the 
prelude  to  several  different  conclusions.  In  the  end  the  view  that 
we  might  sleep  upon  it  was  welcomed  as  an  epigrammatic  truth, 
and  acted  on.  The  company  broke  up,  finding  their  bedroom- 
candles  in  the  passage. 

And  as  the  chit  and  the  counterchit  tore  themselves  apart  till 
morning,  the  latter  said  to  the  former,  "  What  was  all  the  fun  ? 
Did  you  make  out  ? "  To  which  the  chit  replied  simply,  "  I 
wawesn't  listening,"  in  a  long  sweet  drawl.  And  to  that  young  of- 
ficer's ears — will  you  believe  it? — these  words  seemed  the  embodi- 
ment of  divine  wisdom,  and  he  remained  intoxicated  I 

Miss  Sibyl  Arkroyd,  although  she  had  just  professed  herself  ut- 
terly worn  out  with  her  hard  afternoon's  work,  was  not  too  tired 
to  say  to  her  sister,  over  the  lighting  of  a  bedroom-candle  in  the 
passage,  "Come  into  my  room;  I've  something  to  say  to  you." 

Judith,  majestically  undisturbed  at  anything  a  younger  sister 
can  possibly  have  to  say,  is  in  no  hurry  to  comply  with  this  re- 
quest or  mandate.  Rather,  she  is  inclined  to  make  a  parade  of 
deliberation,  exchanging  understandings  with  Mr.  Challis  over  the 
heads  of  the  group  of  males  with  whom  he  is  retiring  to  the 
smoking-room,  to  end  the  day  with  a  cigar.  Secret  reciprocities 
seem  to  have  set  in,  thinks  Sibyl,  pausing  on  the  landing  above,  out 
of  sight.  And  these  are  too  subtle  for  the  vernacular  guests,  and 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  93 

outclass  the  counterchits  altogether.  Though,  as  each  of  these 
last  is  dwelling  contentedly  on  his  recent  chit,  that  doesn't  come 
into  court. 

But  Sibyl  is  wary,  and  gets  away  in  time  to  her  room.  She  just 
hears  her  sister's  farewell  speech  to  the  author  :  "  Do  consider  your 
readers  a  little,  Mr.  Challis,  and  don't  ruin  your  brain  with  too 
many  cigars,"  and  his  answer  :  "  It  all  depends  on  the  quality  of  the 
baccy;"  followed  by  a  testimonial  from  William  Rufus  about  the 
brand  of  the  one  Challis  has  just  chosen;  and  then  she  ends  a 
majestic  ascent  of  the  broad  stairway,  with  the  portraits  of  de- 
parted Arkroyds  looking  down  from  its  wainscoted  walls,  by  dis- 
appearing into  her  sister's  room. 

"  What's  the  something,  Sibyl  ?  " 

"You'll  be  angry  if  I  tell  you." 

"I  may."  Judith  keeps  her  candle  in  her  hand.  Is  it  worth 
putting  it  down,  if  dissension  in  the  wind  is  pointing  to  a  short 
interview  ?  "  But  how  can  I  tell  till  I  know  ?  Why  did  you  want 


"Well  —  I'll  tell  you.  But  you  mustn't  fly  into  a  rage.  That 
man  Mr.  Scoop  —  or  Harris,  or  whatever  his  name  is  —  married  his 
Deceased  Wife's  Sister  !  " 

"  Is  that  any  concern  of  mine  ?  " 

"  You  wouldn't  speak  in  that  way  if  it  weren't." 

"In  what  way?" 

"  The  way  you  spoke."  What  may  seem  inexplicable  here  is  due 
to  the  inability  of  mere  words  to  do  justice  to  the  intensity  of 
Judith's  unconcern.  There  was  no  need  for  an  indifference  such 
as  a  humming-top  asleep  shows  to  the  history  of  its  own  time. 

"  I  don't  mind  waiting  till  you  are  reasonable,  Sib  dear."  This 
little  bit  of  Prussian  tactics  improved  Judith's  position.  She  put 
her  candlestick  on  a  piece  of  real  Chippendale,  to  express  anchor- 
age, but  remained  standing.  She  had  been  looking  very  hand- 
some in  the  white  chiffon  all  the  evening,  and  thought  so.  Her 
subconscious  judgment  confirmed  this,  as  a  mirror  on  a  wardrobe 
door  swung  her  reflection  before  her  for  a  moment.  Sibyl  had 
opened  it.  Judith  looked  at  her  wrist-watch  as  she  stood,  but 
meant,  subconsciously,  to  look  up  again  when  the  counterswing 
brought  the  image  back.  All  which  occurred,  and  then  Sibyl  sat 
against  the  bed-end,  having  disposed  of  the  wardrobe,  and  said: 

"Yoii  know  you  have  been  in  Mr.  Harris's  company  all  day, 
Judith.  And  I  suppose  it's  going  to  be  the  usual  thing.  But 
there's  no  sense  in  your  calling  me  unreasonable  simply  because 
I  want  you  to  know  what  the  position  is." 


94  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  What  is  the  position? " 

"  Just  what  I've  told  you.  Mr.  Harris  .  .  .  well — Challis  then 
....  is  not  really  a  married  man.  He  married — at  least,  made 
believe  to  marry — his  Deceased  Wife's  Sister." 

"  Then,  now  you've  told  me  what  the  position  is,  I  know.  And 
I  may  go  to  bed." 

"  Don't  be  irritating,  Judith."  It  is  provoking,  you  know,  when 
your  enemy  makes  a  successful  rally  after  a  seeming  repulse. 
Judith's  last  tactical  move  was  masterly.  Her  success  soothed 
her  to  moderation. 

"  I  don't  want  to  be  irritating,  Sib.  And  I  don't  think  you  have 
any  right  to  talk  of  being  irritating  after  what  you  said  just  now. 
'The  usual  thing!'  What  usual  thing?" 

"  You  know  what  I  mean,  and  it  doesn't  matter." 

"I  don't  think  it  matters  the  least.  But  what  do  you  know 
about  Mr.  Challis  ?  I  mean,  what  do  you  know  that  I  don't  ? " 

"  Only  what  I  told  you." 

"  But  how  do  you  know  ?  Really,  Sibyl,  I  shall  go  if  there  are 
to  be  any  more  mysteries." 

"  Well,  don't  be  impatient,  and  I'll  tell  you."  And  thereon  Sibyl, 
seated  on  the  end  of  the  bed,  gave  the  substance  of  a  short  chat 
with  her  mother  when  she  came  in  from  the  excursion.  That  lady 
must  have  been  mighty  interested,  Judith  thought,  to  talk  about  Mr. 
Challis's  affairs,  which  could  not  possibly  concern  any  of  them. 
She  said  as  much,  resentfully,  to  her  sister. 

"  Well,"  said  Sibyl,  "  I  only  tell  you  what  she  said  to  me.  She 
drove  Mrs.  Barham  home  from  Thanes,  and  they  talked  about  it  all 
the  way.  The  Bishop  had  it  on  perfectly  good  authority.  I  think 
it  was  the  editor  of  some  well-known  paper  who  had  heard  it  from 
a  gentleman  who  had  interviewed  Mr.  Challis  for  him.  You 
know  how  they  do  ?  "  Oh  yes ! — Judith  knew.  "  Well,  this  gentle- 
man had  it  from  Mr.  Challis  himself,  who  had  begged  him  very 
earnestly  to  say  nothing  about  it.  So,  of  course,  nothing  appeared 
in  the  article." 

"  What  a  delicate-minded  editor !  " 

"  I  think  it  was  very  nice  of  him.  Why  not  ?  But  you  always 
sneer,  Ju.  Anyhow,  that's  what  the  madre  said  to  me.  And  we 
agreed  that  the  sooner  you  knew  the  better.  ..." 

"And  why?" 

"  Oh,  well,  because,  of  course.  .  .  .  However,  we  can't  discuss 
that  now  at  this  time  of  night.  I  only  know  what  Mrs.  Barham 
said  the  Bishop  said.  ..." 

"  What  did  His  Holiness  say  ? " 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN        95 

"  Judith,  if  you  sneer  I  won't  talk  to  you.  .  .  .  Well,  the 
Bishop  said  that  if  he  had  his  way,  he  would  refuse  Holy 
Communion  to  all  people's  Deceased  Wife's  Sisters  .  ..  .  there! — 
you  know  what  I  mean  perfectly  well,  Judith." 

Judith  had  started  a  protest,  but  gave  up  the  point.  "I  know 
what  you  mean.  But  why  doesn't  he  ?  " 

"  Mrs.  Barham  said  he  did  not  feel  sure  of  the  support  of  Public 
Opinion.  But  for  all  that  this  gentleman  was  living  in  Sin, 
technically  if  not  actually,  or  actually  as  well  as  technically,  or 
.  .  .  well! — I  forget  which  .  .  .  with  this  woman."  Sibyl 
paused;  the  pause  was  a  tribute  to  the  force  of  the  curl  of  her 
sister's  lip.  She  ended :  "  Come,  Ju,  you  can't  call  her  a  lady,  you 
know!" 

"  Did  the  Bishop  say  gentleman  ? " 

"No.  By-the-bye,  I  think  the  Bishop  did  say  man.  But,  of 
course,  he  would  speak  scripturally.  Besides,  all  gentlemen  are 
men  too,  but  all  women  are  not  ladies." 

The  curl  died  very  slowly  on  Judith's  lip,  if  at  all.  "  Poor  Mr. 
Challis !  "  said  she.  "  He  doesn't  know  what  he's  losing — at  least, 
what  he  would  lose  if  it  wasn't  for  Bishop  Barbara's  respect  for 
the  World.  Fancy  having  the  Holy  Communion  refused  one — by 
Bishop  Barham!  ..." 

"Judith!     If  you're  going  to  blaspheme!  ..." 

"  I'm  not,  dear.  I'm  going  to  say  good-night.  And  to-morrow 
I'll  tell  Mr.  Challis  of  his  parlous  plight." 

"  Oh,  Ju,  you  never  will !  " 

"Wait  and  see!  Good-night,  dear."  The  "dear"  was  rather 
perfunctory.  And  it  was  not  to  correct  it  to  tenderness  that 
Judith  turned  back  in  the  doorway  and  reclosed  it  from  within. 
"  I  want  to  know  what  you  meant  by  '  the  usual  thing,' "  she  said, 
and  waited. 

"  I  thought  you  said  you  didn't  think  it  mattered." 

"  I  don't  think  it  does.  But  I  want  to  know  what  you  meant  by 
it,  just  the  same." 

The  return  into  the  room  to  ask  the  question  added  to  its  weight 
somehow.  Sibyl  might  have  answered  more  forcibly  and  less 
pertly  had  it  been  asked  during  conversation.  "I  should  have 
thought,  after  the  Honourable  Stephen,  that  that  went  without 
saying." 

"'After  the  Honourable  Stephen'!  .  .  .  Sibyl!"  There  is 
growing  resentment  in  the  handsome  woman's  voice  of  protest,  and 
a  slight  flinching  in  her  sister's  manner  recognizes  it.  She  speaks 
uncomfortably. 


96 

"  Well,  what  would  you  have  me  say  ?  You  know  quite  well,  Ju, 
that  the  madre  thinks  so  too.  What  is  the  use  of  pretending?" 

Judith's  colour  is  heightened  as  she  closes  the  door  to  prevent 
someone  hearing  in  the  passage — her  maid  perhaps  or  her  sister's. 
"  /  see  no  use  in  pretending,  Sib.  If  you  and  mamma  are  going 
to  say  spiteful  and  malicious  things,  you  had  better  speak  them 
out.  .  .  .  Yes,  it  is  spiteful  and  malicious  to  try  to  make  out 
that  there  was  anything  between  me  and  Stephen  Lyell;  it  is 
simply  wicked  to  use  the  word  flirtation.  .  .  .  No — I  know  you 
have  not  actually  used  it — but  it's  the  same  thing.  It  was  that 
woman  entirely !  And  you  know  it  I " 

"I  should  have  felt  as  she  did.  Besides,  Lady  Di  Lyell's  no 
fool.  Look  how  you  had  him  to  yourself  all  day  long  ...  oh  yes ! 
— I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say.  Perhaps  there  wasn't.  But 
some  people  can  get  on  perfectly  well  without  any  love-making.  I 
think  that  way's  the  worst;  it's  insidious  and  hypocritical.  Yes, 
Judith ! — if  you  are  going  to  flirt  with  a  married  man,  I  would 
sooner  you  did  it  above-board."  Notice  Sibyl's  elisions,  and  how 
easily  understood  they  seemed  to  be.  Sisters'  intercourse  is  based 
on  concurrent  consciousness  of  the  actual;  sometimes  admitted, 
sometimes  concealed.  These  two  had  harboured  theirs  from  the 
nursery,  usually  finding  speech  for  them.  In  the  present  case  they 
had  never  spoken  quite  openly,  though  each  knew  the  other  knew 
of  her  knowledge,  and  pointed  allusions  to  flirtations  with  mar- 
ried men  had  been  perfectly  well  understood. 

Judith  has  been  keeping  back  a  great  deal  of  anger — she  has 
self-control  in  plenty — to  affect  a  certain  patronage  of  a  younger 
sister;  albeit  she  has  only  a  couple  of  years  more  to  her  half  of 
the  fifty  they  share  between  them.  "  Sib  dear !  "  she  says.  "  You 
are  entirely  absurd — quite  childish.  If  her  jealous  ladyship  wasn't 
secure  against  me  and  poor  good,  honourable  Stephen,  where  is 
married  bliss  to  find  security?  Unless  men  and  women  are  never 
to  be  friends  at  all." 

"  Nobody  objects  to  it  that  I  know  of.  Only  not  one  at  a  time. 
You  know  the  difference  that  makes  as  well  as  I  do — as  well  as 
everyone  does." 

Probably  Judith  did,  and  that  was  why  she  said  nothing — or,  at 
least,  in  what  she  did  say  made  no  reply  to  the  last  assertion,  but 
went  back  to  the  general  question.  She  put  her  hand  on  the  door- 
handle to  suggest  peroration  and  spoke  collectedly  and  coldly. 

"  You  are  quite  wrong,  Sibyl,  when  you  use  the  word  '  flirtation ' 
about  me  and  Stephen  Lyell.  Cordial  acquaintance  is  quite 
enough — even  friendship  is  a  little  overstrained.  Not  but  that  we 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  97 

are  very  good  friends,  and  should  always  keep  so,  only  for  that 
fool  of  a  woman!  But  I  shall  always  think  somebody  made  mis- 
chief." She  turned  the  door-handle  to  indicate  the  penultimate 
character  of  what  was  coming,  but  did  not  open  the  door.  "  And 
as  for  this  Mr.  Alfred  Challis  or  '  Titus  Scroop  ' — who  is  a  person, 
by-the-bye,  with  whom  any  sort  of  flirtation  would  be  simply  im- 
possible— he's  just  a  clever  playwriter  without  the  slightest  pre- 
tence to  be  considered  a  ...  no ! — I  wasn't  going  to  say  gentle- 
man; let  me  finish  .  .  .  accustomed  to  the  ways  of  Society." 
Sibyl  didn't  feel  convinced,  but  kept  her  counsel.  "  And  I  have 
my  own  reasons  for  wishing  to  cultivate  his  acquaintance." 

Now,  surely,  at  this  late  hour  of  the  night,  and  after  so  active 
a  day,  and  with  these  two  young  ladies'  respective  maids  wondering 
sotto  voce  on  the  landing  outside  what  on  earth  it's  all  about — 
surely  that  door-handle  might  have  turned  in  earnest!  But  we 
all  know  the  fire  that  seems  put  out  with  a  spark  still  chuckling  in 
its  core  at  the  nice  blaze  it  means  to  be  one  day.  Perhaps  if  Sibyl 
had  said  "  I  ss — see  "  with  less  of  suggestion  that  some  human 
frailty  undefined  had  been  sighted  by  her  shrewdness,  and  had 
commanded  her  sympathy ;  and  perhaps  (even  more)  if  she  had  ab- 
stained from  saying  to  herself,  "  I  thought  it  was  that,"  in  a  voice 
that  was  evidently  intended  to  be  heard,  yet  to  seem  inaudible — 
perhaps  the  fire  would  not  have  broken  out  again.  As  it  was,  the 
door-handle  had  a  relapse,  and  its  manipulator  said  rather 
sharply :  "  Thought  it  was  what  ? " 

"The  Stage,"  was  the  reply.  "Oh  yes,  Ju! — I  know  all  about 
it;  so  you  needn't  look  like  a  Tragedy  Queen.  Pray  disgrace  your 
family !  Good -night,  dear." 

"  Sibyl,  you  are  a  thoroughly  selfish  woman  .  .  .  did  you  say 
why?  Why — because  you  are  indulging  all  your  own  fancies — just 
flinging  away  hundreds  on  all  sorts  of  useless  fads,  and  all  the 
while  opposing  me  in  a  reasonable  wish — for  it  is  reasonable  to 
wish  to  give  it  a  trial — because  of  a  miserable,  old-fashioned 
prejudice  against  a  profession  which  at  least  is  as  respectable  as 
hammering  little  copper  pots  and  making  little  bits  of  fussy 
enamelled  jewellery.  I  can't  tell  you  how  sick  I  get  of  hearing  of 
it  all.  ..."  Anger  at  mere  impertinence  does  not  involve  a  flush, 
like  resentment  against  a  charge  of  misdemeanour  on  a  point  of 
delicacy.  But  one  can  go  white  with  anger,  and  Judith's  change 
of  colour  may  be  due  to  it,  as  she  says  what  she  evidently  means 
to  be  her  last  word.  Sibyl  tries  to  deprive  it  of  a  last  word's  ad- 
vantage. 

"  If  you  are  going  to  take  that  tone,  Ju,"  she  replies,  "  I  think 


98  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

we  had  better  talk  no  more  about  it.  And  how  little  copper  pots 
can  have  anything  fast  or  disreputable  about  them  I  don't  know. 
But  pray  disgrace  your  family,  if  you  can  get  anyone  to  help  you — 
Mr.  Scoop,  or  Challis,  or  anyone."  Then  this  young  lady  did  not 
play  fair,  for  she  said  or  as  good  as  said  that  if  her  sister  was  as 
tired  and  sleepy  as  she  herself  was,  she  wouldn't  stand  there 
talking,  but  would  go  to  bed.  But  even  this  was  not  so  bad  as 
adding:  "And  what  all  this  has  to  do  with  Mr.  Scoop's  Deceased 
Wife's  Sister  I  can't  imagine ! "  The  dry  tone  in  which  Judith 
said,  "  Nor  I,  dear ! "  may  have  conveyed  her  views  about  her  sis- 
ter's powers  of  Logic,  without  more  enlargement — at  least,  she  in- 
dulged in  none  and  went  away  to  her  own  bedroom  rather  despis- 
ing herself  for  feeling  exasperated,  but  knowing  that  she  was  so  by 
the  satisfaction  she  got  from  an  increased  indifference  to  what  her 
family  thought  about  the  theatrical  profession.  Her  stage-mania 
was  getting  the  bit  in  its  teeth.  But  she  could  find  it  in  her  heart  to 
laugh  at  Sibyl  for  trying  to  support  her  own  fads  on  the  moral 
repute  of  little  copper  pots.  Why,  so  far  as  that  went,  the  little 
pots  might  be  anchorites  in  deserts  for  any  power  they  had  of 
blemishing  it. 

As  for  "  Mr.  Scroop's  Deceased  Wife's  Sister,"  that,  she  knew, 
was  nonsense,  because  he  had  told  her  the  name  of  his  first  wife. 
Or,  stop  a  minute ! — might  she  not  have  been  a  half-sister  ?  Judith 
guessed  shrewdly.  But  then — it  occurred  to  her  presently — would 
that  count?  She  thought  of  this  after  she  was  in  bed,  and  was 
half  inclined  to  get  up,  and  look  up  the  point  in  her  prayer-book. 

The  suspicion  that  had  crossed  Challis's  mind  in  the  drawing- 
room  was  confirmed  by  the  way  his  companion  had  glanced  at  her- 
self in  the  mirror,  before  answering  his  qiiestion  about  the  beauty 
of  her  friend  the  stage-aspirant,  more  than  by  the  wording  of  her 
answer.  After  all,  the  fact  that  a  good-looking  woman  had  refused 
an  unqualified  testimonial  to  the  beauty  of  an  alleged  friend  was 
very  negative  evidence  indeed  that  she  was  all  the  while  speaking 
of  herself.  But  the  glance  at  her  reflection  seemed  natural  enough 
to  him  under  the  circumstances,  though  he  was  ready  to  admit  that, 
much  as  he  had  written  about  them,  he  did  not  understand  women. 
His  conclusion  from  it  was  supported  by  something  not  altogether 
natural  in  the  tone  of  the  answer;  the  substance  of  it  might  be  no 
more  than  provisional  modesty,  to  cover  future  confession.  Had 
she  answered  that  her  friend  had  a  Juno-like  figure,  a  splendid 
Greek  brow  and  nose,  rich  coils  of  dark  hair,  a  stately  column  of  a 
throat,  and  ample  justification  for  evening  dress  whenever  war- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  99 

ranted  by  authority — could  she  have  looked  him  in  the  face  later 
and  claimed  the  identity?  Challis  dwelt  upon  the  inventory  more 
than  was  needed,  and  decided  that  the  semi-evasion  had  been  skil- 
ful, and  had  shown  that  its  author  was  superior  to  frivolous  van- 
ities. There  was  glamour  about  this :  men  persist  in  ascribing  high 
qualities  to  beautiful  women,  and  only  concede  them  grudgingly 
to  dowdies  as  a  set-off  to  their  unhappy  plainness. 

Anyhow,  even  if  he  was  mistaken,  his  mistake  would  give  him 
a  sound  ground  for  writing  as  much  as  he  was  inclined  to  write 
about  this  young  lady  to  Marianne;  and  he  felt,  without  exactly 
knowing  why,  inclined  to  write  rather  liberally  about  her.  Per- 
haps, if  he  had  had  a  mind  for  self-vivisection,  he  would  have 
found  that  he  shrank  from  acknowledging  the  reason  he  had 
hitherto  flinched  from  writing  about  her  to  his  wife;  which  was, 
briefly,  that  he  was  just  too  far  entiche  to  feel  at  ease  in  telling 
her  how  much  in  love  he  had  fallen  with  one  of  the  daughters, 
and  how  awfully  jolly  she  was,  and  how  awfully  jealous  she,  Mari- 
anne, would  be  if  she  was  there  to  see.  You  know — male  reader 
over  head  and  ears  in  wedlock! — that  that  is  what  you  would  have 
written,  and  despatched  with  an  authenticating  photograph  if  one 
was  attainable.  And  you  would  have  asked  for  the  last  photo  of 
your  correspondent  in  return — the  one  with  baby  pulling  her  hair; 
not  that  beastly  one  yearning,  with  the  lips  slightly  parted — to  give 
as  a  swop  to  your  new  love;  because  six  copies  were  to  come  from 
Elliott  and  Fry's,  and  we  could  have  as  many  more  as  we  wanted. 
But  Mr.  Alfred  Challis  was  not  so  detached  as  all  this;  and,  with- 
out absolutely  suspecting  it,  he  was  not  sorry  to  be  supplied  with  a 
well-defined  locus  scribendi,  where  all  analysis  and  justification 
would  merge  and  be  forgotten.  He  felt,  with  such  a  licence  of 
fr«e  pen,  much  more  ready  to  go  to  work  with  his  long  letter  to 
Marianne  about  that  long  walk  to  the  Rectory  to-day.  See  what 
a  lot  he  could  find  to  tell  about  that  Parson  who  wanted  (or  didn't) 
to  marry  his  Deceased  Wife's  Sister!  Partly  on  the  question  it- 
self— one,  of  course,  of  the  greatest  interest  to  both — and  partly, 
if  not  more,  because  he  had  just  remembered  that  surely  the  name 
of  the  Parson  who  took  on  the  duties  for  Charlotte  Eldridge's  rev- 
erend cousin  out  Clapham  way  was  Athelstan  Something;  and 
hadn't  he,  the  said  cousin,  been  known  to  come  away  to  this  part 
of  the  world  to  take  his  friend's  duties  in  the  country  and  get 
change  of  air  ?  Of  course !  And  then,  too,  there  was  the  incident 
of  the  sofa  in  the  evening.  Yes! — he  would  make  the  peep  into 
the  mirror  amusing. 

They  were  new  candles  all  through  again  this  evening — really  I 


100  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

.  .  .  the  extravagance  in  these  great  houses !  What  would  Mari- 
anne say  if  she  saw  it?  But  so  much  the  better!  Candles  that 
have  never  heen  blown  out  give  a  much  better  light  than  restarted 
ones — who  can  say  why?  Challis  settled  down  soon  to  his  long 
letter,  and  wrote  well  into  the  night.  The  four  candles  he  had 
enlisted  had  burned  down  to  mere  housekeeper's  perquisites — sub- 
stitute- justifiers — by  the  time  he  had  signed  himself  Marianne's 
loving  Tite;  and  after  a  good  stretch  in  acknowledgment  of  an 
hour's  bent  back,  had  lighted  an  isolated  sample  with  an  ex- 
tinguisher-parasite, so  as  to  blow  all  four  out  together,  and  keep 
them  neck  and  neck. 

After  he  was  in  bed  he  said  to  himself  that  he  must  make  sure 
that  letter  went  by  the  first  post,  or  it  would  only  reach  Marianne 
such  a  short  time  before  the  writer.  It  was  very  stupid  of  him, 
that  it  was,  to  have  allowed  so  many  days  to  pass  before  writing 
a  proper  account  of  "  these  people  "  to  his  wife.  She  had  only  had 
such  very  perfunctory  letters  before.  He  classed  it  as  a  stupidity. 
However,  it  might  end  by  his  overstaying  the  week  he  was  asked 
for  by  more  than  an  extra  day  already  bespoken,  and  then  this 
long  letter  would  seem  in  better  keeping.  That  would  make  it  all 
right. 


CHAPTER  IX 

HOW  MARIANNE  SHOWED  THAT  LETTER  TO  AN  INTIMATE  FRIEND,  MRS. 
ELDRIDGE.  WHERE  WAS  THAT  SOFA?  OF  COUNTRY  AND  TOWN 
HOUSES.  JEALOUSY 

MARIANNE  CHALLIS  had  never  become  quite  reconciled  to  her  new 
life  at  the  Hermitage  at  Wimbledon,  obvious  as  was  the  improve- 
ment on  her  old  home  in  Great  Coram  Street.  What  she  would 
have  liked  would  have  been  that  Titus — for  she  had  adopted  the 
Christian  name  of  his  nom  de  plume,  not  without  pride — should 
become  a  brilliant  and  successful  author,  that  a  plentiful  income 
should  take  the  place  of  the  modest  salary  of  a  subordinate — im- 
portant, but  still  a  subordinate — in  a  City  accountant's;  but  that, 
nevertheless,  their  old  life  should  go  on  as  it  had  done  since  their 
marriage  nine  years  ago. 

She  made  little  concessions  and  reservations.  They  would  have 
had  a  bath  put  up  in  the  little  room  next  the  nursery,  on  the  sec- 
ond floor,  with  a  regular  hot-water  service  from  the  kitchen.  The 
old  kitchen-range  might  have  been  got  rid  of  at  the  same  time, 
and  a  new  one  put  in  its  place,  with  a  proper  oven,  and  then  it 
wouldn't  have  been  one  long  grumble-grumble-grumble  from  Eliz- 
abeth Barclay  all  day  long.  They  could  have  had  the  roof  seen  to, 
and  the  window-frames  seen  to,  and  the  drains  seen  to,  and  all  the 
substantial  repairs  attended  to;  and  they  could  have  made  the  land- 
lord do  it  as  soon  as  they  were  in  a  position  to  threaten  him  with 
legal  proceedings  if  he  didn't.  But  really,  when  you  have  no 

means  but  a  limited  salary,  and  a  boy's  schooling  to  pay  for! 

so  Mrs.  Challis  said  to  Mrs.  Eldridge,  a  friend  in  her  confidence, 
and  as  she  didn't  finish  the  sentence,  we  need  not.  And  then  the 
drawing-room  could  have  been  made  quite  pretty,  with  the  same 
patterned  paper,  of  course,  and  as  near  as  we  could  get  the  carpet. 
Only  it  was  second-hand  when  poor  Kate  bought  it  fourteen  years 
ago,  and  the  man  from  Shoolbred's  said  the  pattern  was  out  of  date. 
And  as  for  the  beds  and  the  blinds  and  curtains,  it  would  have 
been  just  as  easy  to  have  them  all  new  at  Coram  Street  as  at  Wim- 
bledon. And  really  Titus  could  have  done  perfectly  well  with 
the  top  back  attic,  out  of  the  noise,  to  do  his  writing  in.  It  could 

101 


102  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

have  been  made  quite  nice,  and  would  have  looked  ever  so  much 
bigger  with  bookcases  round. 

However,  it  couldn't  be  helped  now.  Titus  had  condemned  the 
top  back  attic,  and  made  a  fuss  about  the  walls  sloping  in.  Of 
course,  she  only  meant  bookcases  on  the  straight-up  walls.  But 
men  were  like  that,  and  you  might  talk  to  them  till  Doomsday. 
Mrs.  Challis  left  something  defective  here  also,  and  we  are  again 
under  no  obligation  to  complete  the  sentence  for  her. 

Of  course  Titus  had  a  much  nicer  room  now — at  least,  a  much 
larger  one.  What  he  wanted  such  a  big  room  for  Marianne 
couldn't  imagine.  Just  look  at  the  way  he  wrote  that  first  book, 
**  The  Spendthrift's  Legacy."  In  pocket-books  and  on  omni- 
buses! Just  everywhere!  However,  it  pleased  him,  and  when 
he  was  pleased  he  was  satisfied.  As  long  as  he  didn't  complain! 
And  yet  once  more  Mrs.  Eldridge  had  to  nod  an  implied  easy 
interpretation  with  closed  lips.  She — a  wife  herself — could 
understand. 

Very  likely  the  might-have-been,  in  Marianne  Challis's  mind, 
of  a  glorified  Great  Coram  Street,  with  the  successful  author  turn- 
ing out  immortal  works  in  a  glorified  top  back  attic,  was  only  an 
allotropic  form  of  a  condemnation  of  things  that  had  come  to  pass 
at  the  new  home  at  Wimbledon.  Very  likely,  too,  it  was  un- 
conscious on  her  part.  She  may  never  have  noticed  that  the 
imaginary  new  chapters  of  the  closed  volume  of  the  old  home  con- 
tained no  reference  to  the  new  friends  her  husband's  great  success 
had  brought  about  him,  to  the  new  Club  he  belonged  to,  and  met 
celebrities  at,  to  the  dinner  invitations  that  frankly  left  her  out,  and 
— almost  more  irritating — those  that  followed  a  perfunctory  card- 
shedding  visit  that  shouted  aloud,  "Because  we  can't  ask  him 
and  leave  you  out,  good  author's  wife ! "  The  imaginary  visitors 
her  fancy  saw  in  the  renovated  might-have-been  drawing-room  were 
John  and  Charlotte  Eldridge,  and  the  Smithsons  and  Miss  Mac- 
culloch — not  grandma;  for  Marianne's  desire  for  her  mother's 
presence  did  not  go  to  the  length  of  cancelling  her  bronchitis  in 
order  to  bring  her  out  on  imaginary  Saturday  evenings.  And 
those  visionary  social  gatherings  never  held  a  dream  of  young 
authoresses,  with  a  strange  power  of  appealing  to  our  hidden  sym- 
pathies, and  dresses  that  must  have  cost  God  knows  what.  But  she 
never  noticed  the  omission.  Nor  that  of  the  theatrical  people,  nor 
the  press  people;  nor  the  swells — male  and  female — who  came  to 
sit  at  the  feet  of  Genius,  and  be  civil  to  its  wife,  who,  though  she 
may  have  been  slow  about  some  things,  could  see  through  all  that, 
and  really  never  went  out,  thank  you  I 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  103 

But  a  few  days'  change  was  just  what  her  husband  wanted. 
That  was  what  she  had  said  to  Lady  Arkroyd  of  Royd  Hall,  in 
Rankshire,  a  case  in  point,  whom  her  husband  had  met  at  Sir 
Spender's,  as  he  called  him,  and  had  encouraged  to  call  on  Mrs. 
Challis  at  Wimbledon.  Now,  at  Great  Coram  Street,  or  the  glori- 
fied fetch  of  it,  no  such  person  appeared;  though,  indeed,  a  few 
inexplicable  fetches  were  supplied  by  fancy  of  people  who  were  in 
earnest  when  they  wanted  her  to  come  too.  Neither  Lady  Arkroyd 
nor  Lady  Betty  Inglis,  who  accompanied  her,  had  gone  beyond 
civility  point — only  men  never  saw  anything,  you  knew  they 
didn't! 

Charlotte  Eldridge  (in  this  case)  knew  perfectly,  dear! — and 
backed  up  Marianne  in  refusing  to  go  to  Royd.  Alfred  Challis 
said  it  was  the  merest  temper;  but  was  he  sorry  she  didn't  go? — 
Marianne  wondered.  She  rather  preferred  not  going,  to  say  the 
truth,  but  she  would  have  liked  Titus  to  be  really  sorry.  And  even 
though  she  had  known  just  as  well  that  he  was  only  pretending  ho 
wanted  her  to  come  too,  she  would  have  liked  him  to  pretend  a  little 
better.  If  he  had  done  this,  she  would  really  have  enjoyed  his  ab- 
sence a  great  deal  more,  and  it  would  have  helped  her  to  believe  she 
didn't  enjoy  it.  She  honestly  wanted  to. 

Because  she  was  one  of  those  housekeepers  who  reconcile  good 
housekeeping  with  what  they  call  a  little  peace  and  quiet.  These 
ends  are  contributed  to  by  the  temporary  abeyance  of  the  house- 
hold. Scarcely  by  its  permanent  absence — that  would  alter  the 
character  of  the  position  altogether.  This  position  was  that  an  un- 
endurable stress  of  responsibility  was  borne  by  the  house's  mistress 
in  her  position,  so  to  speak,  of  ship's  master.  The  navigation 
rested  entirely  on  her  shoulders,  and  the  Captain  meddled.  Cap- 
tains seldom  did  anything  else,  and  there  was  no  peace  and  quiet 
until  they  were  at  their  office  in  the  City,  or  locked  up  in  their 
cabin  as  might  be.  In  that  cabin,  as  in  Challis's  case,  they  pursued 
some  private  end  which  had  no  relation  to  the  stern  realities  of 
Life.  It  might  chance,  as  was  admitted  in  theory,  to  have  some- 
thing to  do  with  the  settlement  of  weekly  accounts — a  remote  con- 
nection of  a  vague  ideal  kind.  But  the  keeping  of  the  log,  the 
regulation  of  the  chronometers,  the  comparison  of  charts — well, 
really,  it  was  impossible  to  attend  to  them  for  the  fidget,  till  the 
Captain  was  safely  entombed  in  his  cabin  and  out  of  the  way! 
And  Charlotte  Eldridge  knew  all  that  as  well  as  Marianne  did. 
She  could  understand,  if  anyone  could.  As  for  schoolboys,  every- 
body knew  what  a  boy  in  a  house  was ;  hence,  broadly  speaking,  the 
sooner  he  was  back  at  school  the  better.  When  home  for  the  holi- 


104  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

days,  there  was  no  peace ;  and  it  was  just  as  well  to  look  the  fact  in 
the  face  and  not  be  deceived  by  any  false  prophets. 

However,  there  was  something  to  be  said  for  the  prophets  in  that 
Jerusalem  at  Wimbledon  when  the  nominal  head  of  the  household 
was  on  a  visit  in  the  country,  and  that  dreadful  boy  was  playing 
cricket  and  wouldn't  be  back  till  late.  This  September  afternoon 
there  was  a  little  peace  and  quiet  at  last,  and  Charlotte  Eldridge 
and  Mrs.  Challis  could  chat — at  least,  till  the  husband  of  the 
former  called  in  on  his  way  from  the  station  to  walk  home  with 
her  across  the  common.  Let  the  record  of  their  talk  be  taken  any- 
where, at  random.  Take  the  images  of  them,  also  at  random,  from 
any  one  of  a  thousand  semi-detached  villas  in  the  suburbs  of  Lon- 
don, and,  if  you  choose  ladies  of  thirty  odd,  true  centres  of  the 
English  middle-class,  you  will  have  all  the  description  you  will 
want  for  the  present. 

"  They're  not  girls.  At  least,  I  don't  call  them  girls,"  said 
Mrs.  Challis,  shutting  the  pot-lid  on  the  tea.  Then  she  blew  the 
spirit  out,  because  it  wasn't  wanted  any  more. 

"  Twenty-six  and  twenty-four,"  said  the  other  lady.  Not  an 
opinion  of  her  own,  but  a  placarding  of  authorized  figures  for  con- 
sideration. They  remained  in  view,  neither  sanctioned  nor  cen- 
sured. Marianne  left  the  point. 

"  Why  aren't  they  married,  is  what  I  look  at." 

"  Looks,  perhaps.  Or  short  tempers.  Either  tells.  Does  Mr. 
Challis  mention  their  figures?  Because  figures  go  a  long 
way."  Mrs.  Eldridge  seems  to  speak  as  an  authority.  Mari- 
anne nods  agreement  as  a  general  rule.  But  presently  takes 
exception : 

"  There  would  be  money,"  she  says.  "  And  that  makes  a  differ- 
ence. Besides,  his  letter  lays  a  good  deal  of  stress  on  one  of  their 
figures.  I'm  never  surprised  at  figures  when  it's  those  sort  of  per- 
sons, in  girls.  They  have  to."  The  implication  seemed  to  be  that 
the  she-toff,  figureless,  got  suppressed — cancelled  somehow. 

"  He  says  looks  too,  doesn't  he  ? " 

"  One  of  them,  certainly.  But  you  can't  tell,  from  men.  And 
it's  one  thing  one  time,  another  another."  Here  a  pause,  following 
&  question  from  Mrs.  Eldridge,  "  Have  you  stirred  it?"  and  an  ir- 
relevant answer,  "I  don't  want  it  to  get  too  strong,"  from  Mrs. 
Challis.  Then  tea.  During  which  the  subject  is  picked  up  and 
dropped  at  intervals,  an  eye  being  kept  on  it  throughout.  It  is  like 
a  mouse  a  cat  is  warden  of. 

"I  suppose  the  good-looking  one  is  the  one  he  sees  most  of. 
They  do."  Mrs.  Eldridge  is  enigmatical. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  105 

Her  friend  is  almost  equally  so.  "I  suppose  it's  better  always 
to  take  no  notice  of  it,"  she  says. 

"  Always  better."    Decisively,  as  from  an  authority. 

"  The  other  one  carves  something,  or  does  art  needlework.  When 
grandma  was  a  girl  they  did  painting  on  velvet — poonah,  it  was 
called.  Or  took  likenesses.  But  then  they  wore  ringlets." 

"I  know.  And  their  waists  were  goodness  knows  where.  But 
they  did  ruins  in  water-colours." 

"  In  sepia.  Ma  has  some  in  a  portfolio.  Heady  for  your  other 
cup  ? "  The  answer  is  substantially  in  the  affirmative. 

"  Don't  put  the  sugar  in  this  time.  They're  such  big  lumps 
....  Thanks!  .  .  .  Yes,  that  was  before  it  was  Art  Things, 
and  Liberty's.  They  were  just  regarded  as  accomplishments  where 
there  were  daughters.  Then,  if  they  became  old  maids,  they  kept 
it  up.  Because  they  had  such  families."  This  did  not  mean  that 
the  old  maids  of  three  generations  back  created  scandals,  but  that 
our  grandmothers'  domestic  cares  stood  in  the  way  of  their  career 
as  poonah-painters  and  so  forth. 

Mrs.  Challis  cut  the  cake.  Some  always  wait  till  this  stage 
of  tea  to  do  this.  But  there  are  many  schools.  Then  she  said: 
"  Titus  says  it's  photography  has  put  an  end  to  all  that  sort  of 
thing.  I  shouldn't  wonder." 

"Nor  I."  But  Mrs.  Eldridge  adds  that  she  doesn't  care  about 
Art  Objects  for  their  own  sake,  though  they  do  for  presents.  She 
then  picks  up  the  dropped  mouse  she  has  had  an  eye  on.  "  Which 
is  the  one  that  slums  ? "  she  asks. 

"  Oh — both !  So  does  their  lady-mother."  There  is  a  trace  of 
bitterness  in  this  expression.  "But  only  by  the  way.  I  don't 
suppose  they  stick  to  anything." 

"What  does  the  good-looking  one  do?"  No  immediate  answer 
coming,  the  speaker  throws  a  light,  "Perhaps  she's  a  vegetarian, 
or  antivivisects  ? " 

"  No,  it's  neither  of  those.  But  I've  no  business  to  tell.  Titus 
said  not,  in  the  postscript." 

"  He  wouldn't  mind  me." 

"  I  don't  know,  dear.  Perhaps  it  was  you  he  meant.  However, 
you  must  promise  not  to  tell,  if  I  get  the  letter." 

"My  dear! — as  if  I  should  tell!  You  know  I  never  say  a 
word ! " 

Marianne  felt  she  had  done  her  duty  by  this  letter  as  she  left 
the  room  to  get  it.  For  had  she  not  honourably  resolved  not  to 
show  it,  and  even  gone  the  length  of  locking  it  into  a  drawer  to 
prove  her  resolution  ?  And  didn't  her  getting  up  from  her  tea  show 


106  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

what  an  honourable  intent  she  had  been  acting  under?  Oh  yes, 
she  had  done  her  duty.  Besides,  what  did  it  matter? 

"  Here's  his  letter.  I  don't  expect  he'll  be  home  till  Thursday. 
.  .  .  No,  I  suppose  I  mustn't  show  you  the  whole.  I'll  read  the 
bits." 

"  You  hadn't  had  your  tea."  Mrs.  Eldridge  felt  quite  secure  of 
the  mouse,  as  she  knew  her  husband  wouldn't  come  before  6.30,  and 
the  train  was  always  behind.  She  felt  so  secure  that  she  inter- 
jected a  remark  011  another  subject — dress.  She  saw  Marianne 
had  on  her  plaid,  and  admitted  her  wisdom;  it  had  gone  so  much 
colder.  How  those  stuffs  did  last  out!  It  really  looked  as  good  as 
new.  Then  she  recommended  those  little  oblong  things  with  jam 
in  the  middle,  which  she  had  tried  and  her  hostess  hadn't;  the 
latter,  though,  had  bought  them  at  the  new  confectioner's. 

Marianne  put  the  letter  safe  out  of  the  way  of  spills  and  slops, 
and  finished  her  tea.  During  which  the  mouse  may  be  said  to  have 
remained  on  the  floor,  watched.  Then  she  picked  up  the  letter,  and 
after  glancing  through  a  page  not  germane  to  the  matter,  identified 
that  which  was.  "Here  it  is,"  she  said,  and  went  on  reading: — 
" '  You  will  be  amused  at  what  I  think  I  have  found  out  about 
Judith,  the  handsome  eldest  one  I  told  you  of.  She  is  stage-struck 
— wants  to  go  on  the  boards!  She  has  not  said  it  directly  to  me, 
but  I  feel  pretty  certain  that  a  "  friend "  she  tells  me  of,  who 
has  these  aspirations,  is  no  other  than  herself.  However,  I  may  be 
mistaken.  This  is  what  I  judge  from:  We  were  sitting  on  a 
sofa'  ..."  The  reader  paused,  looking  on  into  the  text. 

Mrs.  Eldridge  struck  in:  "Where  was  the  sofa?  Does  he  say 
where  the  sofa  was  ? " 

"  My  dear  Charlotte !  "  Marianne  expostulated,  "  can  it  matter  ? 

Besides,  he  says However,  I'll  go  straight  on  if  you're  going 

to  fancy  I'm  leaving  anything  out."  And  then  continued,  reading 
fair :  " .  .  .  '  on  a  sofa  in  the  drawing-room  after  dinner.  When 
she  had  told  me  about  this  friend,  having  asked  me  first  if  I  knew 
lots  of  actors  and  actresses,  I  asked  what  sort  of  looking  girl  the 
friend  was.  7  saw  her  look  in  a  glass  on  the  wall  before  she  an- 
swered. And  then  she  said  something  rather  evasive  about  beauty 
being  a  matter  of  opinion,  and  that  there  was  probably  enough  in 
this  case  for  working  purposes.  She  had  disparaged  her  friend's 
performance,  as  it  struck  me,  out  of  all  proportion  to  her  apparent 
anxiety  to  advocate  her  cause,  and  a  sort  of  confidence  that  she 
•would  succeed.  I  put  this  down  to  protest  of  personal  modesty, 
as  well  as  the  look  in  the  glass.' " 

Marianne  paused,  saying,  "I  see  that,"  and  Mrs.  Eldridge  said 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  107 

also :  "  I  see  that."  Whereupon  the  former  said,  unreasonably : 
"  What  don't  you  see  ? "  and  her  friend  replied :  "  Nothing.  Go 
on."  Which  Marianne  did,  after  a  very  slight  hesitation,  as  of 
doubt. 

" '  I  annex  a  plan  of  the  position  showing  the  angle  at  which  the 
mirror  was  placed,  the  relative  positions  of  myself  and  the  lady,  and 
our  respective  images  in  the  glass.  So  I  could  see  plainly  by  look- 
ing at  her  reflection  that  she  took  a  good  long  look  at  herself  be- 
fore answering  my  question.' " 

"  Is  there  another  cup  left,  dear  ? "  said  Mrs.  Eldridge.  "  Never 
mind  if  you  haven't.  ..." 

"  It  won't  be  good,"  said  the  tea-maker  feelingly.  But  the  ap- 
plicant said  never  mind,  that  would  do !  She  liked  it  strong.  But 
might  she  look  at  the  plan?  She  would  promise  not  to  read. 
There  was  nothing  there  she  needn't  read,  said  her  friend.  Never- 
theless, she  folded  back  the  script  behind  the  rough  bird's-eye  view, 
with  dotted  lines  of  sight  to  show  how  things  had  worked. 

"  Well !  "  said  Marianne,  as  she  handed  the  cup  of  tea — which 
didn't  look  bad. 

"  I  don't  believe  the  sofa  was  half  as  long  as  that." 

"  Charlotte — you're  ridiculous !  " 

"  Well,  I  don't!  Now  go  on  reading.  .  .  .  '  She  took  a  good 
long  look  at  herself.  .  .  .'"  Mrs.  Eldridge  considered  whether 
she  should  reveal  the  thought  in  her  mind  that  Mr.  Challis  must 
also  have  taken  a  good  long  look  to  know.  No! — she  would  not! 
Whatever  she  was,  she  was  not  a  mischief-maker;  and  to  prove 
this  to  her  own  satisfaction,  she  not  infrequently  abstained  from 
saying  something  about  a  lady  and  gentleman.  She  often  found 
an  opportunity  of  doing  this,  as  she  never  thought  on  any  subject 
not  spiced  with  both.  Satisfaction  to  conscience  through  this  ab- 
stention would  be  sure  to  result  in  free  handling  soon  after.  Also, 
the  abstention  was  easy  to  her  this  time,  because  she  believed — 
rightly  or  wrongly — that  Marianne  knew  she  was  making  it. 

Perhaps  rightly,  but  no  outward  sign  to  that  effect  came.  Mari- 
anne glanced  forward  in  the  letter,  and  went  on  reading :  " '  This 
young  woman,  I  fancy,  is  savagely  jealous  of  the  younger  sister 
posing  as  an  active  promoter  of  all  sorts  of  upnesses-to-date.  .  .  .' 
I  wish,"  said  the  reader  parenthetically,  "  that  Titus  wouldn't  use 
such  unusual  expressions.  I  dare  say  they  are  very  clever,  but  I 
don't  profess  to  understand  .  .  .  what?  .  .  .  Oh,  of  course,  I 
see  what  he  means,  but  it's  a  kind  of  thing  I  shall  never  under- 
stand. .  .  .  No,  my  dear  Charlotte ! — it's  no  use  talking  and  try- 
ing to  persuade  me.  'Upnesses-to-date' — just  fancy!"  Now 


108 

Titus  had  been  in  two  minds  whether  to  allow  this  phrase  to  re- 
main, but  had  decided  to  do  so,  as  better  on  the  whole  than  to  pro- 
voke speculation  over  an  obliterated  text.  He  might  have  spec- 
ulated himself  over  such  an  erasure. 

"  I  don't  think  it  implies  anything,"  said  Mrs.  Eldridge,  mean- 
ing, of  course,  anything  about  a  lady  and  gentleman.  "I  fancy 
he  is  only  referring  to  Art  Movements  and  Liberty  silks  and  things. 
Go  on."  And  Marianne  read: 

" '  All  sorts  of  upnesses-to-date,  doing  things  her  grandmothers 
would  have  thought  infra  dig.  .  .  .'  What  does  that  mean?" 

"Lord,  Marianne! — that  doesn't  mean  anything.  Do  go  on. 
Only  what  they  would  be  too  swell  to  do !  That's  alL"  Marianne 
continued : 

" '  Infra  dig.,  while  she  herself  is  not  allowed  to  try  her  luck 
and  face  the  music.  She  has  the  courage  for  it,  evidently.  Old 
Norman  blood!  By-the-bye,  I've  been  damning  William  the  Con- 
queror up  and  down  ever  since  I  came.  For  the  old  cock  is 
besotted  about  him.  Says  he  was  the  first  Socialist,  and  never 
talks  of  anything  else ! '  .  .  .  It's  not  interesting,  this ! *'  She 
stopped. 

"No — that's  not  interesting.  I  want  to  hear  more  about  the 
girl's  looks.  Couldn't  you  find  what  he  says  about  her  figure? 
You  said  he  laid  stress  on  it." 

"In  his  other  letter.  Tall  and  striking.  Dignified  kind  of 
girl." 

"  I  should  hardly  call  that  laying  stress  on  her  figure,  as  such." 
Mrs.  Challis  reflects  upon  this  rather  paradoxical  view  of  her 
friend's.  She  is  not  as  clear  as  she  might  be  often  over  her  hus- 
band's elisions  and  hyperboles,  and  does  not  feel  sure  she  reported 
him  rightly.  "  Perhaps,"  she  says,  "  I  should  not  have  said  *  laid 
stress  on.'"  Her  friend  says  oh  no! — "laid  stress  on"  was  all 
right.  But  there  was  some  indeterminateness  in  what  he  was  said 
to  have  laid  stress  on.  However,  Mrs.  Eldridge  excuses  further 
elucidation.  "  Sure  there's  nothing  more  about  that  girl  ? "  she 
asks. 

"  Yes,  there's  some  more  somewhere.  OK — here !  .  .  .  '  As  to 
the  lovely  Judith,  of  course,  she  might  prove  a  duffer  behind  the 
footlights.  But  then,  again,  she  mightn't.  She's  the  very  thing 
for  Aminta  Torrington  in  "  Mistaken  Delicacy."  '  That's  the  name 
his  new  play's  to  be  called.  I  liked  '  Atalanta  in  Paddington '  bet- 
ter myself." 

"Not  nearly  such  a  good  title.  No!  If  'Mistaken  Delicacy* 
hasn't  been  had  a  dozen  times  before,  there  couldn't  be  a  better 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  109 

title.  Of  course,  he  wants  her  to  play  in  it.  What  else  is 
there?" 

"'Very  thing  for  Aminta  Torrington.  .  .  .'  Oh  yes! — it's 
here  ,  .  .  'and  I  shall  try  to  get  her  to  see  Prester  John  about 
it'  .  ..  .  that's  what  they  call  Mr. — what's  his  name? — the  man- 
ager at  the  Megatherium,  don't  you  know  ?  .  .  .  '  about  it,  and 
see  if  we  couldn't  drill  her  up  to  performance  point.  She  couldn't 
be  a  total  .  .  .'  something  crossed  out.  ..." 

"Let  me  look  ...  oh  no — that's  nothing!  Only  fiasco.  It's 
the  same  as  failure."  Mrs.  Eldridge  retained  the  letter  and  went 
on  reading,  unopposed.  The  erasure  had  clearly  been  an  almost 
insultingly  merciful  one,  to  meet  a  defective  knowledge  half-way. 
She  went  on  reading,  scrapwise,  half  inaudibly  at  times;  some- 
times saying  "hm-hm-hm,"  to  stand  for  omissions.  .  .  . 
" '  Couldn't  be  a  total  failure,  because  it  isn't  every  day  .  .  . 
thing  happens  .  .  .  sort  of  Court-beauty  .  .  .  good  family 
.  .  .  make  a  set-off  against  inexperience  .  .  .'  hm-hm!  .  .  . 
'elocution  very  good,  as  far  as  I  can  judge.  .  .  .'  I  don't  see 
any  more  about  her."  Mrs.  Eldridge  read  a  good  deal  more  of  the 
letter  to  make  sure  of  the  point,  although  Marianne  reached  out 
her  hand  to  take  it  back.  The  latter  lady  was  looking  rather 
nettled.  She  knew  that  fiasco  meant  fizzle  perfectly  well,  and  it 
was  ridiculous  of  Titus  to  treat  her  like  a  schoolgirl. 

Those  who  know  the  sort  of  person  this  young  mater-familias  in 
a  plain  dress  was,  must  know  also  what  she  meant  by  the  phrase 
"  a  proper  pride."  It  is  easy  for  superior  persons — toffs  of  birth, 
toffs  of  Science,  Letters,  Art — to  decide  that  this  phenomenon  is  a 
ridiculous  egotism  in  anything  so  middle,  so  Victorian,  so  redolent 
of  Leech  or  Cruikshank  as  Marianne  Challis;  to  pronounce  it  an 
outcome  of  a  simple  incapacity  to  realize  her  own  insignificance. 
Gracious  mercy ! — suppose  we  were  all  suddenly  to  "  realize  "  our 
own  insignificance!  .  .  .  But  really  the  subject  is  not  one  that 
will  bear  thinking  of.  Dismiss  your  insignificance  with  a  caution ! 
And  pray  for  a  cloudy  sky,  that  the  stars  may  not  remind  you  of  it. 

When  Charlotte  Eldridge  had  read  all  down  the  next  page  of  the 
letter,  she  surrendered  it  to  the  hand  that  was  waiting  for  it.  But, 
even  then,  not  without  a  glance  down  the  following  one  as  she  let 
it  go.  Her  friend  apologized  for  taking  it  away. 

"  I  shouldn't  mind  your  reading  it  all,  dear,"  she  said.  "  But 
as  I  promised  .  .  . !  " 

"  Quite  right,  dear!  "  And  both  these  ladies  felt  they  had  made 
a  sacrifice  to  Duty.  The  letter  wasn't  to  be  shown,  and  a  great 
deal  of  it  had  not  been  shown.  What  more  could  the  most  ex- 


110  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

acting  ask?  How  many  ideals  are  as  nearly  attained  in  this  im- 
perfect world? 

"  However,  there's  nothing  in  what  you  haven't  seen  that  could 
have  interested  you  in  the  very  least."  Having  made  out  a  good 
case  for  Conscience,  why  weaken  it?  But  probably  Mrs.  Challis 
is  unaware  that  she  doe^  so.  "  No ! — there's  not  a  word  more  about 
the  girl."  This  is  in  answer  to  a  question  that  could  hardly 
remain  unanswered  merely  because  nobody  had  asked  it.  The 
negative  chilled  the  conversation.  Why  was  there  not  a  word  more 
about  the  girl? 

A  disturbance  upstairs  caused  Mrs.  Challis  to  get  up  and  leave 
the  room.  It  was  those  children.  Oh  dear,  what  little  plagues  they 
were !  Presently  she  came  back,  explanatory.  She  believed  it  was 
really  that  odious  girl  Martha's  fault.  She  would  have  to  get  rid 
of  her.  But  Titus  always  sided  with  the  girl,  and  that  made  it  so 
difficult.  .  .  .  What  was  it  this  time?  .  .  .  Oh,  the  child 
wanted  the  iron.  Martha  was  ironing,  and  of  course  paying  no 
attention,  and  Emmie  had  burnt  herself.  No — not  badly;  but  a 
nasty  burn!  Marianne's  style  does  not  favour  definition. 

The  two  ladies  sit  on  into  the  twilight — early,  from  a  southeast 
wind  bringing  the  town-fog  westward — and  are  less  talkative. 
The  slow-combustion  grate's  first  snail-like  manifestations  this 
year — for  the  weather  has  been  mild  till  to-day — begin  to  glimmer 
in  a  half -dusk  favourable  to  their  detection.  The  children  will  be 
down  directly  to  say  good-night.  One  can't  talk  till  they  are  done 
with  and  out  of  the  way.  Presently  they  come,  but  are  not  al- 
lowed to  rush  to  the  cake  at  once.  They  shall  have  some  directly. 
The  casualty,  Emmie,  who  yelled,  exhibits  an  arm  between  four  and 
five  years  old  with  a  scar  on  it.  She  consents  to  goldbeater's  skin 
on  condition  that  she  licks  the  place  herself.  But  what  did  that 
matter  when  there  was  cake?  All  children  have  but  one  relation 
to  cake.  They  want  it,  and  when  that  piece  is  done,  they  want  an- 
other the  same  size,  or  larger.  These  two  were  quite  one  with  their 
kind  on  this  point,  but  they  took  the  first  piece  behind  a  sofa  to 
devour  it;  even  as  a  Royal  Bengal  Tiger  at  the  Zoological  carries 
away  a  horror  a  vegetarian  would  die  of  into  his  bedroom,  lest  you 
should  get  it  and  eat  it  first.  But  they  came  out  for  more;  which 
the  tiger  never  does,  because  he  knows  it  isn't  any  use,  and  prefers 
to  pretend  he  doesn't  care  to  ask  favours  and  be  refused. 

"  I  shall  give  them  a  couple  of  grains  of  Dover's  powder  apiece," 
said  their  mother.  "They've  had  nothing  for  a  month."  This 
good  lady  held  with  the  practice  of  a  dose  now  and  again,  inde- 
pendent of  symptoms.  "  If  it  were  not  for  me,  they  would  be 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  111 

left  altogether  without  medicine.  It's  a  thing  their  father  always 
opposes  me  about."  The  words  "Dover's  powder"  were  said  a 
little  too  soon  to  be  unheard  by  the  persons  concerned,  and  the 
consequence  was  that  Emmie,  the  younger  one,  bit  Martha,  the 
nurse,  going  upstairs.  However,  this  incident,  with  the  ructions 
that  arose  from  it,  was  closed  in  time ;  and  a  little  more  peace  and 
quiet  followed  in  its  wake. 

"  I  wonder  at  your  husband  and  that  Martha  girl.  Look  at  her 
teeth!" 

"  My  dear  Charlotte,  Titus  quite  likes  Martha,  compared  to  Har- 
inood,  whose  teeth  are  really  good,  considering  that  she  only  takes 
sixteen  pounda."  Harmood  was  the  house-and-parlourmaid — a 
special  antipathy  of  the  great  author's. 

"  Well ! — I  wonder  at  it,  is  all  I  can  say.  They  go  so  much  by 
teeth.  Besides,  look  at  the  way  she  hooks  her  dress.  The  whole 
thing!  You  may  depend  on  it  that  Mr.  Challis  is  only  doing  it 
for  a  blind,  because  Harmood's  pretty.  ..." 

"  Doing  what  for  a  blind  ?  " 

"  Oh,  my  dear  child,  what  a  silly  you  are !  You  know  perfectly 
well  what  I  mean.  That  sort  of  thing.  He  wants  you  to  think  he 
hasn't  any  eyes,  and  makes  believe  to  prefer  the  ugly  one.  Lots  of 
husbands  go  on  like  that — only  simpletons  never  see  anything." 

"  I  can't  see  that  it  makes  any  difference  to  me,  either  way." 

"  Very  well,  dear !  Look  at  it  your  own  way.  Only  don't  blame 
me  and  say  I  didn't  tell  you ! " 

Marianne  wanted  to  say  something  sharp  to  her  friend,  but 
could  not,  owing  to  lack  of  constructive  power  in  emergencies. 
However,  as  that  lady  closed  with  a  snap,  even  as  a  moral  physi- 
cian who  had  written  a  prescription  and  done  her  duty,  there  was 
time  to  consider  an  extempore — an  ex  multo  tempore,  one  might  say. 

"  I  wish  you  would  say  exactly  what  you  mean,  Charlotte." 

"What  about?     About  the  servants?" 

"No.    About  Titus." 

"  My  dear  Marianne,  it  isn't  any  use  talking  about  it.  A  woman 
in  your  position  has  to  expect  it.  ..." 

"  Yes !    But  expect  what  ? " 

"  If  you  won't  interrupt  me,  I'll  tell  you.  Of  course,  you  know 
I  know  perfectly  well  your  husband  is  to  be  trusted,  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing.  He  has  too  much  genuine  regard  for  you.  But  I 
always  have  thought,  and  always  shall  think,  that  men  can't  help 
themselves.  ..." 

"  What  for  ?  I  mean,  why  do  you  go  on  raking  up  ?  Can't  you 
leave  alone?" 


112  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  That's  just  what  I  was  going  to  say,  dear !  Especially  in  this 
case.  Because  there's  really  no  need,  if  you  come  to  think  of  it. 
I'll  tell  you,  dear,  exactly  what  I  should  recommend  you  to  do — 
what  I  should  do  if  I  were  in  your  place.  I  should  either  say 
absolutely  nothing,  or  if  I  said  anything  at  all,  just  make  it  chaff 
— talk  about  his  new  flame — say  you  will  evidently  have  to  get 
somebody  else,  don't  you  see?  As  if  it  was  entirely  out  of  the 
question!  Or  perhaps  that  would  be  dangerous,  and  it  wouldn't 
do  to  have  him  thinking  you  suspected  him  of  fancying  you  weren't 
in  earnest.  No! — on  the  whole,  I  recommend  saying  absolutely 
nothing" 

Marianne's  brain  refuses  to  receive  complications  beyond  a  cer- 
tain point.  She  picks  up  the  last  intelligible  phrase.  "As  if 
what  was  entirely  out  of  the  question  ? " 

But  Mrs.  Eldridge  is  on  her  guard  against  making  mischief. 
"  You  mustn't  run  away  with  the  idea  that  I  said  there  was  any- 
thing," is  the  form  her  caution  takes.  And  then,  in  response  to 
an  angry  flush  on  her  friend's  face,  "  I'm  sure  there  isn't  the 
slightest  reason  for  you  to  be  uneasy.  I  have  far  too  much  faith 
in  your  husband  to  suppose  such  a  thing  possible  for  one  mo- 
ment. .  .  .  No,  indeed,  dear! — even  if  she  gets  him  to  get  her 
into  this  play  of  his — and  then,  of  course,  they  would  go  on  seeing 
each  other — I  shouldn't  feel  the  smallest  uneasiness.  Because  look 
at  her  social  position !  " 

"  What  has  her  social  position  got  to  do  with  it  ? " 

Mrs.  Eldridge  elevates  her  eyebrows,  and  perhaps  her  shoulders, 
slightly,  as  though  asking  space  what  next?  But  she  brings  both 
down  to  the  level  of  her  friend's  knowledge  of  the  world  before  an- 
swering :  "  I  should  have  said  everything.  A  woman  in  her  posi- 
tion doesn't  commit  herself  in  any  way  with  a  man  in  your  hus- 
band's, however  distinguished  he  may  be.  Read  any  divorce  case 
of  that  sort  of  people,  and  see  if  they  don't  have  co-respondents  of 
condition.  Of  course,  I'm  not  speaking  of  disgraceful  cases,  where 
the  woman  isn't  received  after.  But  ordinary  divorce  cases  in 
Fashionable  Life." 

"I  can't  see  what  you're  talking  about,  Charlotte." 

"  Then  I  can't  help  it,  dear.  But  I  should  have  thought  it  was 
pretty  plain,  for  all  that !  " 

Marianne  laughs,  a  little  uneasily.  "Do  you  mean  to  say, 
Charlotte,  that  because  Titus  goes  away  for  a  week  to  a  country- 
house  .  .  .?" 

"  Go  on,  dear."  But  Marianne  is  not  constitutionally  a  sentence- 
finisher.  She  begins  again : 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  113 

"  Why  isn't  Titus  to  speak  to  a  lady  without  a  preach  about 
it?" 

"My  dear  child,  nobody's  preaching.  If  you  were  to  listen  to 
me,  instead  of  becoming  impatient  ..." 

"I'm  not  impatient!  But  you  know  it's  irritating,  and  you 
can't  deny  it." 

"  Very  well,  dear,  I  don't  then.  But  let  me  finish  what  I  was 
saying.  If  you  had  listened  to  me,  you  would  have  seen  my  mean- 
ing. I  was  all  the  time  exonerating  your  husband  from  the  sus- 
picion of  even  the  slightest  flirtation  with  this  showy  girl.  I  was 
trying  to  make  your  mind  easy  about  them,  and  to  say  that  even  if 
they  are  rather  thrown  together — as  of  course  they  must  be,  because 
one  knows  what  country-houses  are  ..." 

"  Now,  Charlotte,  that  is  nonsense !  Why  are  country-houses 
any  different  from  town-houses  ?  What  stuff ! "  Marianne  sees  a 
light  on  the  horizon.  She  knows  about  country-houses,  because 
she  was  a  girl  in  the  country  once.  But  much  of  her  friend's 
analyses  and  insights  had  been  so  much  unqualified  Sordello  to 
her,  and  had  left  her  brain  spinning.  She  can  and  will  hold  fast 
that  which  is  good,  and  stick  to  the  country-houses.  And  clearly, 
if  she  can  prove  that  country  and  town  houses  are  on  all  fours  for 
the  purposes  of  Charlotte's  world — a  world  where  a  sort  of  dowdy 
Eros  dodders  respectably  about,  all  the  Greek  fire  knocked  out  of 
him — then  a  stopper  will  be  put  on  these  suggestions  of  infidelities. 
She  does  not  see  all  the  connecting-links,  but  would  like  to  un- 
horse her  opponent  somehow. 

That  lady  is  also  ready  to  let  the  issue  turn  provisionally  on 
town  and  country-house  life.  But  this  is  for  a  reason  of  her  own. 
She  pursues  the  subject :  "  It's  not  stuff,  dear.  There's  all  the  dif- 
ference in  the  world.  In  country-houses  people  split  up  into 
couples,  and  there's  no  check.  Chaperones  on  long  walks,  of 
course ! — only  they  can't  go  so  quick,  and  get  left  behind.  In  town, 
no  such  thing.  And  there's  really  no  such  thing  as  staying  with, 
in  town,  either.  Practically!  Of  course,  now  and  again  friends 
from  the  country  to  stay  a  few  days.  But  it  isn't  the  same 
thing,  going  to  the  Royal  Academy  and  the  New  Gallery.  The 
Zoological  Gardens  is  a  good  deal  more  like,  only  scarcely  any- 
body goes.  Wasn't  that  John's  knock  ? " 

It  was,  apparently,  and  was  followed  by  John's  pocket-handker- 
chief— at  least,  that  was  how  a  very  loud  noise  was  inexactly  classi- 
fied. Whatever  its  proper  name  was,  it  caused  its  promoter's  wife 
to  fear  his  cold  was  worse.  He  must  have  his  feet  in  mustard  and 
hot  water.  But  his  attitude  was,  when  he  had  replaced  the  con- 


114  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tingent  remainder  of  the  noise — a  real  pocket-handkerchief — in  his 
pocket,  that  his  cold  was  nearly  well,  and  no  human  power  should 
induce  him  to  submit  to  treatment  of  any  sort;  but  mustard  and 
hot  water  least  of  all.  He  would  go  and  have  a  Turkish  Bath,  and 
kill  himself.  Not  that  he  anticipated  a  fatal  result;  his  wife  fore- 
cast that  for  him.  It  transpired  shortly  that  he  habitually  set 
himself  in  opposition  to  all  her  wishes,  and  went  his  own  way. 
But  in  so  doing  he  encountered  frequent  disasters,  his  rescues  from 
which  were  always  achieved  by  her,  single-handed,  with  constant 
addition  to  a  long  score  of  debt,  unpaid  by  him,  on  account  of 
which  he  never  so  much  as  said,  thank  you! 

Mr.  Eldridge  was  a  person  who  defied  description,  in  a  certain 
sense;  but  only  because  description  calls  for  materials,  and  he  sup- 
plied none,  or  nearly  none.  He  might  have  been  the  Average 
Man  himself,  for  any  salient  point  that  he  presented.  An  ob- 
servant person,  called  on  to  recollect  what  he  was  like,  would 
probably  have  remembered  that  he  shaved,  all  but  a  little  whisker, 
and  given  up  the  rest  of  him  to  oblivion. 

His  conversation,  after  the  Turkish  Bath  had  passed  away,  was 
an  inquiry  if  his  wife  was  ready ;  and,  after  he  had  been  told  not  to 
fuss,  but  to  sit  down  and  make  himself  agreeable,  a  statement  that 
it  was  a  good  deal  colder  than  yesterday.  So  it  afforded  a  natural 
opportunity  to  his  good  lady  of  giving  him  a  chance  to  enrich  it  by 
comment  on  the  subject  in  hand  at  the  time  of  his  arrival.  She 
did  not  wish  to  drop  it,  having,  in  fact — as  hinted  above — a  purpose 
in  dwelling  on  it. 

"  We're  talking  about  country-houses,"  said  she. 

"  What  houses  ? "  said  he ;  and  then,  without  waiting  for  an 
answer :  "  Oh — country-houses !  Where  ? " 

"Don't  pretend  to  be  stupid,  John.  Nowhere,  of  course!  No 
particular  houses — country-houses  in  general.  And  town-houses." 

"  Oh,  I  see!     What  about  'em?    How's  the  children? " 

"  Never  mind  them !  Listen  to  me."  Marianne  interjected  that 
perhaps  they  hadn't  gone  to  bed,  and  she  could  ring  for  Martha 
to  see.  But  she  didn't  do  it,  and  no  one  urged  it.  So  the  chil- 
dren lapsed,  and  Mrs.  Eldridge  proceeded:  "Pay  attention  to  what 
I'm  saying,  John,  and  put  that  glass  down.  You'll  break  it."  He 
did  as  he  was  bid.  "  We — are — talking — about — the  differences 
between  country-houses  and  town-houses."  To  which  Mr.  Eldridge 
replied,  "  Oh,  ah ! — yes,  to  be  sure !  Well ! — you'd  have  to  see  'em 
both,"  causing  his  wife  to  despair  visibly  of  male  intelligence,  with 
endurance,  before  starting  afresh  with  an  appearance  of  willing- 
ness to  make  things  easy  for  a  slow  apprehension :  "  We  were  talk- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  115 

ing  about  the  difference  of  the  way  one  lives,  in  town  and  in  the 
country.  Nothing  to  do  with  premises." 

She  then  went  on  to  put  a  hypothetical  case,  to  enable  her  hus- 
band to  grasp  the  full  range  of  the  recent  conversation.  Suppos- 
ing that  he  had  been  a  young  man  enamoured  of  a  damsel  whose 
sentiments  towards  himself  were  a  matter  of  conjecture — suppose, 
in  fact,  he  were  "  paying  attention  " ;  that  was  how  the  lady  put  it 
— would  he  prefer  to  press  his  suit  in  a  town-house  or  a  country- 
house?  She  made  the  question  a  leading  one  by  suggesting  divine 
solitudes  congenial  to  the  development  of  tender  passions,  and  a 
climate  favourable  to  the  inspection  of  sunsets  and  moonrises.  So 
tempting  was  the  prospect  to  the  mind  of  her  hearer  that  he  made 
a  grimace  expressive  of  greedy  delight,  and  gave  a  low  whistle. 
"  'Ooky !  "  said  he,  dropping  an  aspirate  humorously.  "  Country- 
houses — rather ! " 

"  Any  man  would  say  so  at  once,  Marianne."  Which  Mrs. 
Eldridge  contrives  to  articulate  in  a  way  that  implies,  Heaven 
knows  how,  that  their  discussion  has  had  application  to  some  par- 
ticular case — no  mere  abstract  review  of  the  subject.  For  the  ap- 
prehension of  her  husband  is  reached,  with  the  effect  that  he  says, 
with  an  expression  of  roused  interest:  "I  say,  Lotty,  tell  up. 
Who's  the  party  ?  Who's  at  it  now  ? "  But  he  does  not  press  for 
information,  because  his  wife  checks  him  skilfully  with,  "Hush, 
John! — never  mind  now!  I'll  tell  you  after."  His  comment, 
"  Some  gal,  I  suppose,"  suggests  some  lucid  vision  into  life  and 
character  beyond  its  drain  on  the  resources  of  language. 

Marianne  Challis  would  have  entered  joyously  enough  with  her 
friend  into  the  building  up  of  a  situation  involving  only  a  neigh- 
bour's husband  or  wife,  but  she  would  fain  have  put  a  brake  on  the 
car  of  Gossip  in  her  own  husband's  case.  The  worst  of  it  was 
that  every  word  she  had  said  so  far,  with  that  intention,  had  only 
brought  about  an  increase  of  speed.  And  now  she  was  conscious 
that  if  she  put  in  any  protest  of  her  faith  in  her  husband's  stabil- 
ity, matters  would  be  made  ten  times  worse.  The  horses  would  get 
the  bit  in  their  teeth.  At  least,  his  name  had  not  been  mentioned, 
nor  the  company  he  was  in,  before  this  stupid  John  Eldridge.  All 
this,  or  the  protoplasm  of  it,  hung  about  her  mind  as  she  began 
saying,  "If  you  mean  ..."  and  stopped.  But  she  had,  even 
with  those  three  words,  put  her  head  in  the  lion's  mouth  past  recall. 
Her  friend  interrupted. 

"  I  don't  mean  to  say  a  single — word — more,  dear,  to  you  or  to 
anyone.  So  don't  be  uneasy.  But  you  see  what  John  thinks." 
The  speaker,  as  she  rose  to  her  feet  with  these  words,  as  one 


116  IT  NEVEE  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

gathering  up  for  departure,  showed  as  a  young  woman  in  black,  of 
a  lissome,  yet  angular  type;  taller  than  her  friend,  and  with  more 
claim,  from  personal  experience  of  her  own  figure,  to  sit  in  judg- 
ment on  other  women's.  But  her  complexion  is  not  as  good  as 
Marianne's — a  rather  sallow  one,  not  free  from  a  sense  of  freckles. 
However,  that  may  only  be  the  firelight. 

John,  merely  conscious  that  something  male  and  female  was 
under  discussion,  had  put  on  what  he  conceived  to  be  the  proper 
look  for  the  father  of  a  family  equal  to  all  moral  emergencies.  His 
face  would  have  served  just  as  well  for  that  of  a  person  doing  sub- 
traction with  a  sense  of  responsibility.  This  ambiguity  of  out- 
ward rendering  of  the  phases  of  his  mind,  of  course,  gave  corre- 
sponding latitude  to  his  wife's  interpretation  of  it. 

Marianne  had  a  growing  misgiving  that  she  was  becoming  skil- 
fully entangled  in  the  meshwork  of  an  undeserved  embarrassment, 
and  floundered  in  desperation.  "  I  don't  the  least  understand  what 
you  mean,  Charlotte,"  she  said.  "What  does  he  think?  What 
about?  "  On  this  he  asserted  himself. 

"  No,  I  say,  you  know !  I)on't  bring  me  in — don't  bring  me  in ! 
I  know  nothing,  you  know — nothing  at  all,  you  know !  Mum's  the 
word,  you  know — always  keep  out  of  this  sort  of  thing !  "  He  en- 
forced his  words  by  pursing  up  his  mouth  and  shaking  his  head 
continuously,  in  a  kind  of  paroxysm  of  caution.  He  also  turned 
somewhat  purple,  and  his  eyes  grew  smaller.  These  combinations 
put  the  finishing-touch  on  the  strength  of  his  wife's  position.  She 
threw  up  a  new  and  final  entrenchment,  and,  as  it  were,  closed  the 
subject  officially. 

"  You  do — quite — right,  John,"  said  she,  "  to  keep  out  of  it. 
That's  all  you've  got  to  do."  She  then  assumed  quite  suddenly  a 
large-hearted  tone  of  liberality.  "  And,  after  all,"  she  said,  "  what 
does  it  all  come  to?  Just  nothing  whatever!  I'm  sure,  dear 
Marianne,  you  need  not  allow  yourself  to  feel  the  least  uneasiness 
— not  for  a  moment!  With  a  husband  like  yours!  Only  think! 
You'll  see  it  will  be  all  right,  dear — just  recollect  what  I  say !  Now 
we  must  go.  I'll  go  and  get  my  cloak — it's  upstairs.  No! — don't 
you  come.  ..."  But  Marianne  goes,  for  all  that. 

Mr.  Eldridge,  left  to  himself,  whistled  a  monotonous  tune  over 
and  over  again,  and  flicked  a  glove  that  was  on  with  another  that 
was  off.  He  threw  his  eyes  opener  by  fits  and  starts,  as  if  he  were 
trying  on  a  new  pair  of  lids.  Then  he  produced  the  vanished 
pocket-handkerchief,  and  held  it  by  two  corners  before  him,  spread 
out,  as  though  he  admired  the  pattern.  Then,  as  though  he  de- 
cided suddenly  that  it  was  not  Saint  Veronica's,  he  availed  him- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  117 

self  of  it  as  a  resource  of  civilization,  and  returned  it  resolutely  to 
his  pocket.  We  are  not  responsible  for  this  gentleman's  actions, 
and  can  only  record,  without  explanation,  that  he  then  said  quite 
distinctly,  "  Pum,  pum,  pum ! "  and  slapped  his  hands  heavily  to- 
gether. He  added :  "  Time's  gettin'  on  " — a  remark  equally  true  of 
all  periods.  Then  he  listened  to  the  voices  of  the  two  ladies  re- 
turning down  the  stairs. 

"  Oh  no ! — you  needn't  be  the  least  afraid  about  John.  He's 
discretion  itself  in  a  thing  of  this  sort.  And  you'll  see  it  will  be 
just  as  I  say.  When  your  dear  husband  comes  back  it  will  all  be 
exactly  the  same,  and  ..."  Here  her  voice  dropped,  and  John 
listened  hard,  but  missed  a  great  deal.  ...  "So  now,  dear,  you 
will  promise  to  be  quite  happy  about  it,  and  not  let  yourself  fret. 
Won't  you?" 

"But,  Charlotte  dear,  it's  all  about  nothing.   .   .   ." 

"  That's  the  right  view  to  take,  dear.  That's  just  exactly  what 
it  is — all  about  nothing!  Now  let's  try  and  be  happy,  and  not 
think  about  it.  John! — where  are  you?  Do  come  and  let's  be  off! 
I  hope  it  isn't  raining." 

"  Pavement  was  dry  enough  when  7  came  in,"  was  Mr.  Eldridge's 
testimony.  To  corroborate  it  he  went  out  in  the  front  garden  and 
gazed  upwards,  open-mouthed.  "  Oh  no — it's  not  raining,  fast 
enough,"  said  he.  Which  seemed  to  imply  that  perhaps  something 
else  was. 

Marianne  went  back  into  her  parlour  and  rang  the  bell  for 
Elizabeth  Barclay  to  come  and  take  away  the  tea-things,  because 
Harmood  was  out  for  her  holiday.  She  looked  and  felt  flushed  and 
irritated,  but  could  not  have  said  whether  it  was  with  Charlotte 
Eldridge,  with  herself,  or  with  this  showy  girl  at  Royd.  With  all 
her  stupidity — and  she  had  plenty — she  was  not  wanting  in  loyalty 
to  her  husband ;  although  it  may  be  a  good  deal  of  this  loyalty  was 
only  a  form  "  proper  pride  " — that  is  to  say,  amour  propre — took. 
How  one  wonders  that  commonplace,  uninteresting  people  should 
have  any  amour  propre — should  love  those  insipid  selves  of  theirs 
at  all !  But  they  have  it — the  dullest  of  them. 

As  she  sat  there  in  the  growing  dusk,  watching  the  slow-com- 
bustion stove  economizing  its  coal,  and  making  attempts  to  con- 
sume its  own  smoke,  her  soul  was  doing  battle  on  its  own  behalf 
against  the  insidious  siren  Jealousy,  who  came  and  came  and  came 
again  each  time  she  thrust  her  contemptuously  away.  Had  she, 
perhaps,  despised  her  a  little  too  roundly  when  her  first  whispers 
were  audible?  Had  she  treated  them  too  much  as  an  absurdity 


118  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

when  her  husband's  first  great  success  had  been  followed  by  a  sud- 
den uplifting  of  him  into  a  world  she  resented — resented  because 
the  only  part  she  could  play  in  it  had  been  a  very  minor  one?  Had 
she  taken  it  too  easily  for  granted  that  no  harm  would  come  if  he 
went  his  way  and  she  hers — she,  who  didn't  mean  to  be  patronized, 
whoever  else  did!  Might  it  not  have  been  really  wiser  to  brace 
herself  up  to  the  bearing  of  one  or  two  slights  and  humiliations,  to 
laugh  them  off  and  acknowledge  that  a  homely,  uneducated  woman 
of  her  sort  must  needs  fall  contentedly  into  a  back  rank,  rather  than 
to  refuse  indignantly  to  march  with  the  army  at  all?  She  was 
not  going  to  be  tolerated,  and  made  allowances  for,  not  she! — that 
was  her  attitude.  That  Arkroyd  woman  would  have  been  just 
civil  to  her  in  time,  no  doubt;  but  how  about  all  the  affronts  and 
indignities  she  would  have  had  to  put  up  with  during  apprentice- 
ship? No — it  was  best  as  it  was:  Titus  to  go  his  way  and  she 
hers!  Besides,  her  being  constantly  hatching  him  would  do  no 
good,  if  there  were — that  is  to  say,  if  there  had  been — any  truth  in 
this  nonsense  of  Charlotte's.  But,  really,  it  was  all  so  idiotic.  As 
if  she  couldn't  trust  Titus  for  five  minutes  away  from  her  apron- 
strings!  Of  course,  Titus  was  to  be  trusted!  .  .  .  Was  he? 

She  got  up  and  walked  about  the  room  in  the  flickering  firelight, 
conscious  of  her  heart-beats,  and  half -inclined  to  cry,  if  she  could 
have  chosen.  But  her  eyes  felt  dry  over  it,  as  a  matter  of  fact. 
She  caught  herself  beginning  to  feel  angry  with  Titus,  convicted 
herself  of  it,  and  reprimanded  the  culprit  severely.  Idiot  that  she 
was,  to  be  affected  by  mere  unfounded  gabble!  For  she  was  far 
from  believing,  all  the  while,  that  Charlotte  had  any  faith  in  her 
own  insinuations.  She  fully  recognized  that  her  friend's  pleas- 
ure in  dwelling  on  the  constructive  relations  of  Paul  and  Virginia, 
Paolo  and  Francesca,  Adam  and  Eve,  for  that  matter — anywhom 
male  and  female,  anywhere — was  only  human  sympathy,  leavened 
with  hysteria.  Had  she  not  helped  her,  lubens  et  ex  ammo,  when 
the  improper  study  of  mankind  seemed  good  to  their  hours  of 
leisure?  The  study,  that  is,  of  man  and  womankind  in  braces, 
selected  by  the  student  ?  But  when  the  model  suggested  for  study 
was  her  own  husband,  in  leash  with  a  strange  young  lady,  whom 
she  had  not  seen,  she  felt  the  position  of  a  philosophical  analyst  un- 
congenial. 

Why  could  she  not  be  angry  with  Charlotte?  That  might  have 
seemed  the  most  natural  safety-valve.  Marianne  had  never  read 
u  Othello  " — or  much  to  speak  of  else — but  she  had  seen  it  at  the 
play.  So  she  may  easily  have  recalled  lago's  cautions  against  the 
green-eyed  monster  that  doth  make  the  meat  it  feeds  on,  and  com- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  11D 

pared  it  with  the  way  her  friend  had  somehow  contrived  to  appear 
a  warning  voice,  crying  beware!  to  a  suspicious  soul  adrift  in  a 
wilderness  of  its  own  unreason.  She  was  not  so  very  unlike  the 
Moor  in  her  ready  acceptance  of  the  character  her  lago  had 
claimed  for  herself.  Of  course,  Charlotte  was  a  fool,  and  fanci- 
ful; but,  equally  of  course,  she  was  no  mischief-maker.  Why, 
see  what  a  perfect  faith  she  had  in  Titus's  integrity!  Marianne 
was  angry  with  herself  for  allowing  a  doubt  of  it,  without  having 
the  shrewdness  to  see  that  she  never  would  have  felt  one  if  it  had 
not  been  for  Charlotte.  In  fact,  left  to  herself  in  the  growing 
darkness,  to  brood  over  her  own  scarcely  fledged  suspicion,  she  could 
not  for  the  life  of  her  have  said  what  on  earth  began  it  all.  She 
forgot  all  details  of  her  conversation  with  Charlotte,  and  only  knew 
that  something  in  it  had  made  her  feel  very  uncomfortable. 

Really,  one  is  sometimes  inclined  to  believe  that  imps  of  dark- 
ness hang  about,  to  run  and  help  whenever  they  see  a  little  bit  of 
mischief  brewing. 


CHAPTER  X 

CHALLIS'S  adieu  TO  MISS  ARKROYD.  A  LONG  RIDE  HOME,  AND  A  COLD 
WELCOME.  BUT  IT  WAS  JOLLY  TO  BE  BACK,  AT  ANY  RATE.  MISS 
ARKROYD'S  MESSAGE  DELIVERED 

MARIANNE'S  loving  Tite  did  not  come  back  at  the  time  he  had  ap~ 
pointed — not  by  many  days.  He  postponed  doing  so  in  order  to  go 
back  on  the  same  day  as  Mr.  Brownrigg,  whose  society  he  had  be- 
gun to  find  rather  amusing.  Their  departure  together  was  again 
postponed  in  order  that  they  might  travel  up  in  company  with 
William  Rufus  and  Lord  Felixthorpe,  with  whom  both  had  come 
to  be  on  the  best  of  terms,  after  each  had  denounced  either  to  the 
other,  in  the  strictest  confidence,  as  purse-proud,  rank-proud,  toffish, 
and  standoffish.  They  had  collated  their  respective  observations  of 
the  ingrained  vices  of  Aristocracy,  and  found  that  they  agreed. 
But,  then,  after  they  had  unpacked  their  hearts  with  unprejudiced 
and  candid  criticism,  they  had  suddenly  volte  face'd,  and  discerned 
that  there  was  always  a  Something  you  could  not  define  about  peo- 
ple of  this  sort.  They  had  both  noticed  this  singular  fact,  and 
each  was  supplied  by  it  with  an  insight  into  the  unusual  powers  of 
penetration  of  the  other.  It  was  a  curious  coincidence  that  both 
had  acquired  a  consciousness  of  this  Something  by  comparing  the 
courteous  demeanour  and  graceful  hospitality  of  their  host  with 
what  they  found  it  impossible  to  describe  as  anything  but  the 
Plebeian  Vulgarity  of  the  sitting  Conservative  member  for  the 
borough.  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  caught  it  hot.  Then  look  at  the  in- 
describable grace  of  Lady  Arkroyd,  and  contrast  it  with  the  dowdy 
personnel  and  awkward  manners  of  the  political  gentleman's  wife. 
Why! — there  was  a  woman,  her  ladyship  to  wit,  who  could  be  as 
rude  as  she  pleased  to  anyone,  and  the  indefinable  Something,  came 
in  and  carried  it  off ! 

Was  it  the  indefinable  Something,  or  a  very  easily  definable 
Nothing-of-the-Sort,  that  brought  about  a  still  further  delay  in 
Alfred  Challis's  return  home?  Probably  the  latter,  in  the  form 
of  the  gradual  cordiality  that  comes  to  folk  living  in  the  same 
house  under  auspicious  circumstances,  and  goes  on  growing  till 
quarrelling  time.  It  was  of  less  importance  when  once  he  had 

120 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  121 

overstayed  his  return-ticket;  and  the  final  outcome  of  two  or  three 
postponements,  each  to  await  a  reinforcement  to  the  homeward- 
bound  Londoners,  was  that  the  bulk  of  the  Royd  house-party 
caught  the  two  o'clock  train  ten  days  behind  the  date  of  Mr.  Chal- 
lis's  promised  return  to  his  domestic  hearth,  and  arrived  at  Euston 
in  a  drizzling  mist,  which  knew  that  summer  had  gone,  and  had 
the  atmosphere  all  to  itself. 

The  porter  that  carried  his  portmanteau  and  his  game — a  hare 
and  partridges,  with  which  was  associated  a  promise  of  pheasants 
next  month — to  a  four-wheeler,  might  have  noticed  that  the  lit- 
erary-looking gentleman  and  the  good-looking  young  lady  in  blue 
said  good-bye  a  great  deal — in  fact,  until  a  carriage  called  out  to 
know  whether  the  latter  was  coming  or  not.  But  this  porter's  name 
was  Onions,  and  be  had  no  soul,  except  one  that  was  wrapped  up 
in  remuneration.  So  he  accepted  fourpence  and  saw  nothing. 

But  he  might  have.  And  also  he  might  have  heard  the  following 
conversation  between  the  good-looking — or  best-looking — young 
lady  and  the  gentleman,  after  the  latter  had  made  sure  that  his 
selected  four-wheeler  was  prepared  to  go  as  far  as  Wimbledon. 

"  Now,  Mr.  Challis,  I  know  you're  not  to  be  trusted  to  give  my 
message  to  your  wife.  ..." 

"  Yes,  I  am.  She's  to  write  you  a  line  to  say  when  she'll  be  at 
home." 

"  Stupid  man !  Now  you  know  quite  well  it  was  nothing  as  bold 
as  that.  No,  dear  Mr.  Challis,  tell  her  I  don't  want  to  make  a 
formal  '  call.'  I  want  to  know  her — as  well  as  I  know  you.  And 
I  never  shall  unless  we  see  each  other  quietly,  when  there's  no 
one  else  there.  Oh  dear! — if  only  people  I  want  to  know  would 
give  me  a  cup  of  tea  and  say  '  not  at  home '  to  everyone  else !  " 

"I  should  myself!  But  I  quite  understand.  I'll  wrap  up  the 
message  to  Marianne  exactly  to  that  effect.  She  shall  write  and  fix 
a  day.  And  I'm  not  to  be  there — that's  it,  isn't  it  ? " 

"  That's  it.  Good  man !  And  you  understand  that  I'm  entirely 
in  earnest  about  Aminta  Torrington — (all  right !  Nobody  can  hear. 
They're  all  in  the  carriage) — and  you're  to  speak  to  Mr.  Magnus 
at  the  Megatherium  about  it." 

"  Oh  yes !     I'm  going  to  speak.    Honour  bright !  " 

"  Very  well,  then !     Now  good-bye,  Mr.  Challis." 

"Good-bye.  I  have  had  n  pleasant  time."  But  Mr.  Onions 
heard  none  of  this,  as,  while  he  was  disposing  of  the  portman- 
teau, his  attention  was  engaged  by  conversation  with  the  cab- 
man. 

"  Where's  Wimbledon,  Honey  ? "  the  latter  had  said,  as  he  took 


122  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  box  from  him.  He  seemed  over-ripe,  did  this  cabman.  He 
could  not  fall  off  the  box,  though,  for  he  had  bound  himself  to  it  by 
tarpaulins  of  an  inflexible  nature.  "  Honey "  was  not  Irish :  it 
was  short  for  "  Onions." 

,  "  What's  the  use  of  askin'  me,  when  you  know  yourself  ?  Mean 
to  say  you  don't  ? " 

"I  was  born  there,  my  son.  I've  lived  there  ever  since.  Like- 
wise, I'm  going  to  hend  my  days  there,  exceptin'  I  should  'appen  to 
live  for  ever.  I  was  just  a-puttin'  the  question  to  see  if  you 
knew." 

"  Couldn't  say  to  harf  an  inch  where  it  is.  But  it's  a  place  you 
get  a  pint  at,  every  wisit." 

"Eight  you  are,  my  son!  .  .  .  All  right,  governor — just  off, 
as  soon  as  these  cloths  are  tucked  in.  You  never  mentioned  any 
'urry,  or  I'd  have  seen  to  it ! " 

And  then  Royd  and  its  luxurious  life  have  finally  vanished,  and 
everyday  life  has  come  back,  as  the  cab  growls  through  its  rather 
long  ride.  Challis  was  paying  the  penalty  of  coming  home  by  a 
different  route,  and  now  almost  wished  he  hadn't  made  up  his  mind 
to  cab  the  whole  way.  But  you  know  what  it  is  when  you  have  a 
large  portmanteau  that  won't  go  on  a  hansom. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  the  hare  and  partridges,  he  could  have 
managed  to  consider  the  whole  thing  a  dream.  This  would  have 
been  an  advantage;  for  no  one  stickles  at  finding  waking  life  dull 
after  a  fascinating  sleep-experience.  Do  not  we  all  rather  love 
to  rub  it  into  our  waking  surroundings  how  sweet  that  place  was 
in  the  dream,  how  bright  those  skies  and  seas  were,  how  lovable 
that — well,  usually — person  of  the  opposite  sex  was?  Are  you,  if 
you  are  a  lady,  prepared  to  deny  this  last  item  ?  Not  that  this  con- 
cerns the  story,  for  there  they  were — the  hare  and  partridges.  And 
the  memories  they  brought  back  clashed  with  the  long  perspectives 
of  street-lamps  in  the  drizzle,  and  the  reflections  of  them;  and  the 
male  umbrellas  and  female  umbrellas  bobbing  endlessly  past  below 
them,  or  waiting  for  a  bus  that  somebody  may  get  out  of,  just 
there;  and  the  busses  that  stopped  to  shed  their  passengers  and  fill 
up  again  with  Heaven-favoured  fresh  ones — while  they,  the  um- 
brellas, waited — and  made  the  hearts  of  those  no  umbrella  could 
keep  dry  sick  with  Hope  deferred.  This  hare  and  partridges,  fur- 
soft  and  feather-soft,  though  cold  to  the  touch,  were  full  of  sug- 
gestions of  the  life  that  had  been  switched  off  finally  just  now  at 
Euston  Station.  But  then,  of  course — Challis  ought  to  have  recol- 
lected this,  and  he  felt  it — they  were  equally  full  of  suggestion  of 
where  they  were  going  to  be  devoured.  Was  he  not  going  home 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  123 

to  Marianne,  and  the  children,  and  his  snug  little  writing-room 
looking  out  on  the  Common  across  the  garden,  where  he  was  on  no 
account  to  be  disturbed  ?  The  very  word  "  home "  had  a  magic 
in  it,  and  so  forth:  consult  Literature,  passim!  .  .  . 

No,  really,  it  was  too  absurd  to  allow  his  nasty  cynical  tone  to 
creep  into  his  thoughts — here  in  Hyde  Park;  for  that  was  the 
Marble  Arch,  and  the  cab  was  making  a  good  record — when  in  less 
than  an  hour  he  would  be  back  among  his  Lares  and  Penates.  As 
he  got  nearer  home  he  found  that  the  fire  of  pleasurable  anticipa- 
tion he  had  lighted  began  to  crackle  and  burn  up  of  its  own  accord, 
without  further  effort  on  his  part.  How  he  wished  he  could  invent 
a  word  for  that  confounded  hypothetical  wickedness — treachery  or 
what  not — that  nervous  imaginatives  impute  to  themselves,  know- 
ing its  unreality  all  the  while! 

He  had  never  allowed  himself  to  believe  for  one  moment  that 
Royd  owed  any  of  its  charm  for  him  to  anything  but  .  .  .  well! 
— a  sort  of  general  summary  of  the  charms  of  a  big  wealthy  coun- 
try-house full  of  pleasant  people  with  balances  at  their  Bankers'. 
So  he  expressly  vetoed  the  idea  that  in  the  dream  he  was  now  wak- 
ing from,  as  he  neared  the  Hermitage  and  Marianne,  there  was 
any  one  individual  that  played  a  predominant  part.  He  vetoed  it 
in  obedience  to  that  groundless  guilt  of  conscience  he  was  going 
to  find  a  name  for.  But  for  that  he  would  have  let  it  alone. 

He  would  have  to  find  that  name,  to  brand  the  intolerable 
nuisance;  to  denounce  it  by  it,  when  it  appeared.  Then  he  might 
look  it  in  the  face  unflinchingly,  when  it  told  him  to  snub  his 
memory  for  remembering  so  vividly  the  sunset-glow  on  his  com- 
panion's face,  that  day  they  walked  back  from  the  Rectory.  What 
a  luxury  it  would  be  to  give  this  phenomenon  its  proper  place !  As, 
for  instance,  Mental  Astigmatism — something  of  that  sort!  The 
more  syllables  the  better !  Let  him  see ! — didn't  aischune  in  Greek 
mean  disgrace,  or  guilt?  How  would  pseudaschynomorphism 
serve  the  turn?  Long  enough,  anyhow,  to  convince  a  Grand 
Jury.  .  .  . 

Well,  it  was  this — no  need  to  say  the  long  name  every  time;  at 
least,  until  the  Jury  should  be  empanelled! — that  was  galling  the 
kibe  of  his  mind  at  every  chance  thought  of  Judith  Arkroyd  that 
came  into  it.  Why,  in  Heaven's  name,  should  he  not  dwell  with 
pleasure  on  her  eyes,  which  were  public  property;  on  her  lips, 
which  he  did  not  propose  to  interfere  with;  on  the  touch  of  her 
hand  at  parting,  which,  by-the-bye,  had  gone  the  round  of  the  male 
units  as  the  party  broke  up?  He  was  not  going  to  appropriate  a 
larger  share  than  Felixthorpe,  for  instance,  whom  he  thought  a 


124  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

very  nice  chap ;  or  Brownrigg,  for  that  matter !  Or  ...  but  no ! 
— one  must  draw  a  line  somewhere.  Let  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  keep 
his  fat  hand  to  himself!  At  which  point  Pseudetcetera — (that 
would  do  for  the  present) — said  aloud :  "  Come,  Alfred  Challis, 
what  business  have  you  with  the  word  desecration  in  your  mind  in 
connection  with  this  part  of  the  business?"  He  rebuked  the 
phenomenon,  giving  it  its  name  in  full. 

He  was  no  match  for  it,  though;  and  it  ended  by  scoring. 
"  Should  I  be  here  at  all,"  it  said,  "  if  Marianne  were  .  .  .  ? " 
He  brushed  the  question  aside,  but  his  heart  knew  the  end  of  it. 
Marianne  wasn't.  .  .  . 

However,  it  was  all  Pseudetcetera,  anyhow!  Judith  Arkroyd 
•was  cultivating  him  from  a  purely  selfish  motive — this  rather  bit- 
terly ;  and  as  for  Marianne,  was  he  not  really  glad  to  be  back  again, 
and  wouldn't  it  be  a  pleasure  to  ...  to  present  her  with  the 
hare  and  partridges,  and  facilitate  the  housekeeping? 

As  to  Miss  Arkroyd's  proposal  to  call,  he  did  not  know  how  it 
would  be  received.  Perhaps  he  would  have  to  tell  Marianne  that 
she  really  must  be  a  sensible  woman,  and  a  Woman  of  the  World. 

Anyhow — and  he  drifted  into  a  self-interested  channel  with  some 
sense  of  relief — it  would  never  do  to  have  what  might  be  a  golden 
prospect  for  his  play  thwarted.  He  had  only  imperfect  means,  so 
far,  of  guessing  what  Judith  would  sound  like  behind  the  foot- 
lights; but  as  to  what  she  would  look  like,  that  was  a  thing  there 
could  be  no  misgiving  about.  .  .  .  Why! — the  horse  was  walk- 
ing. Actually,  Putney  Hill !  What  a  much  better  lot  of  four- 
wheelers  had  come  on  the  streets  lately!  In  a  quarter  of  an  hour 
he  would  be  at  home;  and  really  very  glad — honour  bright! — to  be 
back  with  Marianne. 

When  any  lady  or  gentleman  comes  back  from  an  absence,  in  a 
cab  with  luggage  on  it — however  passionate  may  have  been  her  or 
his  longing  for  a  corresponding  him  or  her  who  may  have  been 
(or  might  have  been)  watching  at  the  door  for  its  arrival,  or  how- 
ever much  the  two  of  them  may  feel  disposed  to 

"  Stand  tranced  In  long  embraces 
Mlxt  with  kisses  sweeter,  sweeter 
Than  anything  on  earth  " — 

they  usually  find,  in  practice,  that  it  is  necessary  to  stand  matters 
over,  because  of  the  cab.  This  does  not,  of  course,  apply  to  where 
a  man-servant  is  kept,  who  can  pay  fares  dogmatically,  and  con- 
duct himself  like  the  Pope  in  Council.  But  where  the  yearnings 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  125 

of  both  parties  have  to  be  suppressed  all  through  a  discussion  of 
the  fare  and  a  repulse  of  the  unemployed,  whose  services  have  been, 
anticipated  by  your  own  mercenaries  .  .  .  well! — do  what  you 
will  in  the  way  of  cordiality  afterwards,  it  is  chilling,  and  you 
can't  deny  it.  We  know  we  are  putting  this  in  a  very  homely  way, 
but  this  is  a  very  homely  subject. 

If  that  over-ripe  cabman  had  shown  a  different  spirit,  and  ac- 
cepted the  shilling  or  so  too  much  that  Challis  offered  him,  and 
gone  his  way  in  silence,  who  knows  what  course  events  would  have 
taken  in  the  Challis  household  ?  But  he  not  only  said,  "  My  fare's 
nine  shillings ! "  but  came  down  from  his  box  as  one  comes  down 
from  a  box  when  one's  mind  is  thoroughly  made  up,  and  one 
ain't  going  to  stand  any  more  of  one's  ex-fare's  trifling.  He  also 
unbuttoned  a  series  of  coats,  and  produced  from  his  inner  core  a 
pocket-book,  supposed  to  contain  documentary  evidence  of  some 
sort.  It  was  eight  mile  o'  ground,  and  three  on  'em  outside  the 
radius.  Challis  was  irritated  at  the  low  valuation  put  on  his  un- 
derstanding by  this  cabman,  and  disputed  a  point  he  would  have 
given  way  on  had  an  appeal  been  made  to  the  goodness  of  his  heart 
to  shut  his  eyes  to  obvious  truth  in  the  interest  of  extortion.  He 
was  also  obsessed  by  a  woe-begone  creature  who  had  run  all  the  way 
from  Putney  Bridge  to  assist  with  the  one  portmanteau,  but  had 
been  headed  off  by  Martha  and  Elizabeth  Barclay.  Who,  thus  in- 
tercepted, had  substituted  a  moral  claim  on  account  of  the  distance 
no  one  had  asked  him  to  cover  for  a  legal  claim  for  carrying  a 
portmanteau  into  a  house,  and  making  the  latter  smell  of  his  ward- 
robe till  properly  aired  and  the  mats  shook  next  day.  The  con- 
sequence of  which  was  that,  when  the  cabman  had  reconstituted 
himself  on.  his  box,  under  protest,  and  departed,  Challis,  eager 
to  make  up  for  the  postponement  of  his  greeting  by  a  good  hus- 
bandly accolade,  found  himself  met  by,  "  As  soon  as  you're  done 
with  the  man ! "  and,  turning,  perceived  an  injured  being  touching 
a  soaked  cap,  and  awaiting  recognition  or  execration  in  a  spirit  of 
meekness,  but  quite  determined  not  to  go  away  without  a  settle- 
ment. 

"Run  all  the  way  from  Putney,  have  you?  What  the  devil 
did  you  do  it  for?  Nobody  asked  you."  Here  a  gratuity,  of 
coppers. 

"  Won't  you  make  it  up  a  shillin',  Captain  ?  It  is  'ard,  when  a 
man's  been  out  all  day  looking  for  a  chance,  and  walked  all  over 
Battersea  and  Chelsea  and  round  Brixton — ask  anybody  if  I  ain't  I 
— and  nobody  to  'elp  me  to  a  job  or  say  the  word  for  me.  .  .  . 
Thank  ye  kindly,  Captain !  " — here  more  coppers ;  this  mode  of 


120  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

address  proving  irresistible — "only  if  it  was  made  up  to  a  shil- 
lin'  I  could  get  my  tools  out  of  pawn,  being  a  carpenter  by 
trade.  .  .  ." 

Challis  pushed  the  door  to  in  the  man's  face  with  something  like 
an  oath.  Then  at  last  he  got  a  moment's  leisure  for  his  overdue 
kiss,  which  he  paid  liberally,  as  he  said :  "  Well,  it  is  jolly  to  be 
back,  at  any  rate !  How  are  the  kids  ? "  For,  whatever  the  mal- 
ady he  had  made  the  awkward  name  for  had  been,  he  wasn't  go- 
ing to  show  any  consciousness  of  it. 

"  The  children  you  mean  ?  There's  nothing  the  matter  with 
them  that  I  know  of.  Now  make  haste;  because  it's  a  small  leg. 
If  I'd  thought  you  were  going  to  be  so  late  it  could  have  been  rump- 
steak." 

Challis  looked  at  his  watch.  "  H'm ! "  said  he.  Which  meant 
that  seven-forty  was  not  so  enormously  late,  and  really  more 
elastic  arrangements  might  have  been  contrived.  "I  shouldn't 
Jiave  time  for  a  warm  bath,  should  I  ? " 

"  I  must  tell  Elizabeth  Barclay,  then.  I  dare  say  she  can  keep 
the  meat  back.  Only  say !  " 

"Oh,  it  don't  matter,  if  there's  any  difficulty.  ..." 

"  My  dear ! — why  should  there  be  any  difficulty !  You've  only 
got  to  say.  .  .  .  Well! — am  I  to  tell  Elizabeth  Barclay,  or  am  I 
not?" 

Challis  decided,  and  said.  That  is,  he  did  not  formulate  spe- 
cial instructions,  his  words  being  merely,  "  Half -past,  then.  I'll 
he  sure  not  to  be  later,"  and  went  straight  away  to  get  a  bath.  It 
is  the  greatest  of  luxuries,  as  we  all  know,  after  a  journey,  and 
Challis  had  made  up  his  mind  to  have  one  the  moment  he  de- 
tected a  flavour  of  roasting,  because  that  implied  plenty  of  hot 
•water  in  the  bath-room. 

Those  who  measure  events  only  by  the  bounce  they  manifest — by 
their  rapidity,  or  unexpectedness,  or  by  the  clamour  that  accom- 
panies them — will  wonder  why  any  narrator  of  a  story  should  think 
such  flat  incident  worth  recording.  But  observe! — it  was  the  very 
flatness  of  this  conversation  that  gave  it  its  importance,  coming  as 
it  did  on  the  top  of  the  exhilaration  of  Mr.  Challis's  visit,  and 
his  parting  with  that  large  and  lively  company  of  friends  less  than 
two  hours  ago.  It  has  its  place — this  flatness  has — in  the  lives  of 
these  two  folk  we  write  of,  and  really  accelerates  the  story,  although 
it  is  certainly  slow  in  itself. 

How  very  much  Challis  would  have  preferred  it  if  his  wife  had 
said,  "I  won't  kiss  you  if  you  swear,"  and  had  then  done  it 
quandmeme!  His  mind — a  fictionmonger's — reconstructed  his  re- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  127 

ception  with  things  more  palatable  for  Marianne  to  say,  this  one 
among  them.  Another  thing  he  would  have  liked,  quite  inex- 
plicably, was,  "Well! — how's  the  fascinating  Judith?"  Possibly 
this  was  because  he  would  have  welcomed  help  from  without  to 
convince  him  he  was  indifferent  about  the  young  woman.  The  an- 
swer he  imagined  for  himself,  which  would  have  been  pleasant  for 
him  to  give,  was,  "  She's  coming  to  see  you  next  week,  Polly 
Anne.  So  get  your  best  bib  and  tucker  ready !  "  But  there  had 
been  none  of  this,  nor  the  laughter — purely  imaginary — that  he 
garnished  it  with.  Only  the  flatness  as  recorded. 

"  Perhaps  it  was  all  that  confounded  cabman,"  said  Challis  to 
himself  and  a  bath-towel  like  a  toga,  after  a  very  respectable 
warm  bath — not  equal  to  that  at  Royd,  though — and  a  cold  douche. 
He  had  to  hurry  up  to  keep  his  word  at  half-past  eight.  But  he 
kept  it. 

"  Well ! "  said  he,  as  he  joined  his  wife  in  the  drawing-room, 
where  she  was  awaiting  the  announcement  of  dinner,  Challis  con- 
ceived. 

"Well  what?"  She  touched  the  nearest  bell-handle.  "They'll 
know  it's  for  dinner,"  she  said,  and  the  remark  seemed  relative. 
"Why  well? " 

"Well  everything!  Tell  me  all  about  the  kids,  about  who's 
called,  about  where  you've  been,  about  everything.  Come,  Polly 
Anne,  I  think  you  might  unbutton  a  little  and  be  jolly  when  a 
chap's  been  away  three  weeks.  How  are  John  and  Charlotte 
Eldridge?" 

"Yes! — I  think  you  might  have  asked  about  them.  John  has 
been  at  death's  door.  There's  dinner!  ..."  Challis  made  a 
sympathetic  noise  about  Mr.  Eldridge,  but  postponed  inquiry. 
Nothing  made  it  easy  until  he  found  himself  a  lonely  soup-con- 
sumer ;  because,  you  see,  Marianne  wasn't  hungry. 

"  What  has  it  been  ? "  Too  concise,  perhaps.  But  really  death's. 
door,  with  John  on  the  step,  had  been  the  last  thing  mentioned. 

"  What  has  what  been  ?  " 

"  What  you  told  me.     What's  been  the  matter  with  John  ?  " 

"  Peritonitis.  But  he's  going  on  well  now.  Dr.  Kitt  says  he'll 
have  to  live  very  carefully  for  some  time.  ...  I  know  what  you 
mean,  but  it's  very  unfeeling  to  laugh.  Besides,  I  don't  believe  he 
eats  more  than  other  people."  Challis  felt  indefensible.  Just 
fancy! — there  he  was,  eating  gravy  soup  all  by  himself! 

"  I  wasn't  laughing,  old  girl,"  said  he.  "  Poor  Jack  Eldridge ! 
Peritonitis  is  no  joke.  I'll  go  round  to-morrow." 

K  It  won't  be  any  use.    He  won't  be  able  to  see  you.    Yes — yo\t 


128  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

can  take  the  soup,  Harmood.  Mr.  Challis  isn't  going  to  have  any 
more.  ..." 

A  mere  rough  sample  of  the  conversation.  It  was  not  unlike 
others  of  the  same  sort  on  like  occasions.  But  was  Challis  wrong 
in  imagining  that,  this  time,  it  was  a  little  accentuated!  Was  it 
only  his  imagination,  gathering  suggestions  from  the  atmosphere 
that  his  home  had  been  that  of  self-denying  endurance  during  his 
absence,  and  that  his  own  selfish  indulgences  elsewhere  were  being 
actively  forgiven  for  his  sake?  What  had  he  done  to  deserve  for- 
giveness ?  If  he  had  known  that  he  was  incurring  it,  would  he  have 
committed  the  offence  at  all  ? 

Also  he  did  feel  that  Marianne  hadn't  played  fair.  What  could 
have  been  more  genial  than  her  send-off,  three  weeks  ago? — more 
apparently  genuine  than  her  refusal  to  accompany  her  husband  to 
Royd  on  the  ground  of  a  real  dislike  for  Society?  To  be  sure,  a 
throb  of  conscience  reminded  him  of  a  certain  breath  of  relief — 
almost — that  he  drew  at  the  decisiveness  of  this  refusal.  Had 
Marianne  been  sharp  enough  to  see  it?  His  instinct  told  him  that 
a  woman  might  have  a  sharp  department  in  her  mind  on  points  of 
this  sort,  and  yet  make  a  poor  show  in  logic  and  mental  philosophy. 

The  sense  that  he  was  a  naughty  boy  that  had  been  eating  three- 
cornered  jam-tarts,  and  giving  no  one  else  any,  hung  about  him, 
and  made  him  unlike  himself.  If  only  that  abominable  cabman 
had  not  spoiled  the  part  he  had  sketched  out  for  himself  on  his 
first  arrival,  one  of  exaggerated  self-denunciation  for  his  beastly 
selfishness,  and  tragi-comical  commiseration  for  Marianne  as  Pe- 
nelope or  Andromeda !  It  would  then  have  come  so  much  easier  to 
deliver  that  message  from  Judith  Arkroyd.  And  now !  Just  look 
at  now!  Now,  when  he  actually  found  himself  fallen  so  low  as  to 
half-ask  if  he  might  smoke  in  the  drawing-room  1  Not  quite,  of 
course;  that  would  have  been  too  absurd!  But  he  said  something- 
or  other,  or  Marianne  would  not  have  replied  as  she  did. 

"  As  if  I  ever  minded !  How  can  you  be  so  ridiculous !  "  This 
was  good  and  lubricative.  But  she  spoilt  it  by  adding  that  there 
was  the  little  ash-pan.  Nevertheless,  by  the  time  the  incense  from 
her  husband's  cigar,  and  an  atmosphere  of  consolatory  coffee,  were 
bringing  back  the  flavour  of  a  thousand  and  one  post-prandial 
hours  of  peace  in  days  gone  by,  the  malignant  influence  of  that 
cabman  began  to  lose  its  force,  and  there  was  concession  in  the  way 
she  added :  "  I  suppose  you  weren't  allowed  to  smoke  in  the  draw- 
ing-room at  Boyd's — Royd's — whatever  it  was  ? " 

"  Royd.  Cigarettes — yes !  Hardly  cigars.  At  least,  nobody  did 
it.  The  young  women  smoked  cigarettes." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  129 

"  Those  sort  of  people  do  it  now.  At  least,  Charlotte  Eldridge 
says  so.  I  don't  know." 

"  Wish  you'd  smoke,  Polly  Anne !    Have  a  cigarette  now." 

"  Oh  no ! — I've  tried  often  enough  to  know  I  don't  like  it.  You 
must  go  away  to  some  of  your  Grosvenor  Squares  if  you're  not 
happy  smoking  by  yourself." 

Things  were  pleasanter.  Why  couldn't  Challis  let  it  alone,  in- 
stead of  at  once  discerning  an  opportunity  of  delivering  Judith's 
message  ?  To  say,  as  he  did,  "  No — I've  had  enough  of  the  Gros- 
venor Squares  for  some  time  to  come,"  wasn't  unblemished  truth, 
but  it  was  an  excusable  stepping-stone  under  the  circumstances, 
with  poor  dear  slow  Polly  Anne  waiting  for  consolation.  The  mis- 
take was  in  what  followed.  Our  own  belief  is  he  would  have  done 
much  better  to  make  a  forget  of  that  message  until  his  life  was 
running  again  in  a  married  channel.  He  began  badly  for  one 
thing.  You  should  never  say  "  By-the-bye ! "  in  order  to  introduce 
the  thing  uppermost  in  your  mind. 

"By-the-bye,  Polly  Anne,  it  won't  do  to  forget  that  the  young 
female  Grosvenor  Square  wants  to  call  on  you."  To  this  Mari- 
anne made  no  answer,  and  her  husband  had  to  add :  "  Miss  Arkroyd 
—Judith!" 

It  became  difficult  not  to  answer.  Marianne  fidgeted.  "I  sup- 
pose she'll  have  to  come,"  she  said. 

"  Well ! — I  suppose  so."  There  was  a  shade  of  asperity  in  this. 
But  what  followed  softened  it.  "You  know,  really,  Polly  Anne 
darling,  you'll  have  to  put  up  with  the  fascinating  Judith  a  little, 
for  the  sake  of  the  play.  Besides,  she  sent  you  such  a  very  nice 
message." 

"  Very  kind  of  her ! "  However,  Mrs.  Challis  has  quite  her 
share  of  human  inquisitiveness,  and  if  she  wants  to  hear  the  mes- 
sage after  her  sardonic  speech,  she  must  make  concession.  "  What 
was  the  very  nice  message  ? "  she  asks  grudgingly. 

Perhaps  Challis's  powers  of  fiction  made  him  able  to  imagine 
exactly  how  he  would  have  behaved  if  Judith  Arkroyd  had  been 
merely  a  showy,  smart-set  sort  of  a  girl — or  merely  an  intelligent 
young  woman,  without  a  figure  to  speak  of — or,  still  more  merely, 
one  of  those  excruciating  well-informed  persons  of  importance 
phrenologically,  but  with  no  figure  at  all.  On  this  occasion  he  felt 
he  knew  exactly  what  his  conduct  would  have  been  had  he  under- 
taken an  embassage  from  the  merest  of  these  three — the  last.  And 
he  modelled  his  conduct  accordingly. 

"Don't  be  miffy  with  the  poor  woman,  Polly  Anne,"  said  he. 
He  had  thought  of  "poor  girl,"  but  decided  on  something  bonier, 


130  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

with  hair  brushed  on  to  the  shape  of  the  head,  and  a  black  dress. 
This  refers,  of  course,  to  the  provisional  lay-figure  he  elected  to 
give  his  message  from. 

"  The  poor  woman ! "  Marianne  repeated,  looking  rather  sus- 
picious over  it.  But  the  image  of  the  lay-figure  in  his  mind, 
telepathically  communicated,  produced  a  certain  softening,  so  he 
thought.  He  moved  from  the  bent  wood  rocking-chair  he  was 
smoking  in  to  the  sofa  beside  his  wife. 

"  I'll  tell  you  exactly  her  message  word  for  word,"  he  said. 
He  did  so,  as  from  the  lay-figure.  And,  indeed,  he  almost  wished 
that  fiction  had  been  a  reality,  as  far  as  this  message  went.  He 
could  have  sketched  out  the  proposed  visit  so  much  more  easily, 
in  his  inmost  mind;  which  was,  to  say  truth,  incredulous  about  its 
turning  out  satisfactory  to  either  lady,  their  respective  personal- 
ities being  as  supplied. 

"  I  suppose  she'll  have  to  come,"  said  Marianne  drearily.  "  Why 
can't  she  come  when  other  people  are  here  ? " 

"  Because  she  wants  to  see  you,  my  dear.  She  doesn't  want  to 
see  the  other  people." 

"Why  need  I  be  in  it  at  all?  Can't  you  introduce  her  to  Mr. 
Magnus,  and  let  them  settle  it  between  them  ? "  For  in  his  last 
letter  Challis  had  enlarged  on  the  Aminta  Torrington  scheme,  and 
his  wife  was  quite  au  fait  of  the  position  so  far. 

He  hummed  and  hawed,  and  flushed  slightly.  The  removal 
of  a  column  of  ash  from  his  cigar  seemed  to  absorb  him  for  a  mo- 
ment. "I  don't  think  you  quite  see  all  the  ins  and  outs  of  the 
situation,  Polly  Anne.  Don't  you  understand  ?  .  .  . " 

"Understand  what?" 

"  Well — I'm  sure  Miss  Arkroyd  really  wishes  to  know  you.  You 
see,  I've  talked  so  much  about  you."  This  was  not  really  a  true 
truth,  for  conversation  about  Marianne  had  always  been  at  Judith's 
instigation.  "  But  there  are  other  considerations,  apart  from 
that.  ..." 

"  What  considerations  ? " 

"  Well,  you  know,  we  do  live  in  a  world !  Don't  we  now,  Polly 
Anne?" 

"  I  thought  it  was  something  of  that  sort.  Charlotte  Eldridge 
said  it  would  be." 

"What  did  Charlotte  Eldridge  say?  I  wish  she'd  keep  her 
tongue  to  herself.  ..." 

"  But  you're  getting  angry  before  you  know  what  she  did  say." 

"No,  I'm  not!  I  mean  I'm  not  getting  angry  at  all.  Why 
should  I  get  angry?  Come,  old  girl,  be  reasonable!  What  did 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  131 

Charlotte  Eldridge  say?"  Nevertheless,  it  is  clear  that  Mr. 
Challis  is  keeping  his  temper — keeping  it  admirably,  perhaps,  but 
still,  keeping  it!  His  wife's  answer  shows  painfully  how  well  she 
is  keeping  hers. 

"  Charlotte  Eldridge  said  I  should  be  wanted  the  moment  I  told 
her  about  Aminta  Torrington.  .  .  .  No ! — it's  no  use  pretending, 
Tite!  .  .  .  Besides,  I'm  no t  hurt.  Why  should  I  be ?  Only  I  don't 
see  why  there  need  be  a  make-believe  friendship  between  me  and 
this  young  lady — and  me  to  have  to  put  on  my  black  silk,  and  a 
new  Madeira  cake — and  to  give  Harmood  directions  to  say  not  at 
home!  Charlotte  Eldridge  and  I  have  talked  it  all  over.  .  .  ." 

"  Oh ! — you've  talked  it  all  over  ? "  Challis  either  is,  or  pretends 
to  be,  inclined  to  laugh. 

"  Yes,  we  have.  And  you  know  how  sensible  Charlotte  is  about 
things  of  this  sort.  .  .  .  No,  Titus,  you  can  try  to  make  what  I 
say  ridiculous,  and  I  dare  say  you'll  succeed,  but  you  know  what  a 
good  friend  Charlotte  has  been  to  me  from  the  beginning.  ..." 
Marianne  pulls  up  short  suddenly  in  the  middle  of  her  speech, 
with  a  suggestion  in  it  of  a  tear  corked  in  at  its  source.  She  gets 
the  cork  well  in,  and  ends  with :  "  I  won't  say  any  more  about  it. 
You  shall  arrange  it  just  as  you  like  your  own  way  " — but  this  with 
the  amenability  of  a  traction-engine  making  concession  to  its 
handle. 

Challis,  who  had  felt  it  rather  hard  that  a  tearfulness  derived 
from  tender  memories  of  Mrs.  Eldridge's  loyalty  in  past  years 
should  slop  over  into  his  department,  became  awake  to  the  fact  that 
brisk  strategy  would  be  needed  to  prevent  that  cork  coming  out. 
"  Come,  I  say  now,  Polly  Anne !  "  said  he  with  jovial  remonstrance. 
"Fancy  you  and  me  falling  out  about  a  Grosvenor  Square  young 
lady !  "  He  burst  out  laughing,  roundly.  "  We  have  shot  up  in 
the  world.  My  word ! "  He  got  his  arm  round  an  unresponsive 
invertebrate  waist,  in  spite  of  a  collision  with  a  hook,  which 
rather  took  the  edge  off  his  caress.  Why  cannot  ladies  have  some 
sort  of  little  smooth  tie,  just  at  that  point,  in  case?  It  was  a  very 
slight  blot  on  the  scutcheon,  however,  and,  indeed,  would  have 
counted  for  nothing  with  Challis  had  not  Marianne  offered  him 
her  mole  to  kiss  instead  of  her  lips.  For  she  had  a  mole — a 
small  one,  certainly — just  on  the  cheek-bone.  Now  a  liberal,  un- 
reserved warmth  in  this  act  of  the  drama  would  have  been  in- 
valuable. It  would  have  helped  ChalUs  to  snap  his  fingers  at  what- 
ever it  was  that  was  taunting  him  with  having  effected  for  politic 
purposes  a  half -derision  of  Judith  as  a  Grosvenor  Squarian — and 
that,  too,  after  the  cordial  message  to  his  wife! 


132  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

However,  it  was  quite  impossible  to  pretend — it  would  not  be  fair 
to  say  admit — that  they  were  quarrelling,  after  that.  In  fact,  it 
•was  so  established  an  assumption  that  their  old  confidence  was 
again  on  its  old  footing,  that  Challis  felt  it  would  be  ungenerous 
to  Marianne  to  change  the  subject  for  safety's  sake.  Besides,  he 
wanted  an  answer  to  a  question. 

"You  didn't  tell  me  what  it  was  Charlotte  did  say,  Polly 
Anne.  ...  I  dare  say  she  was  all  right,  you  know."  The  use 
of  her  Christian  name  alone  was  a  concession — showed  good-will. 
Speech  is  full  of  such  niceties. 

Marianne  got  up  and  broke  a  coal  on  the  fire.  She  couldn't 
think  of  two  things  at  once,  naturally.  This  made  a  pause  before 
answering,  and  a  pretence  of  having  omitted  an  answer  because 
of  the  slightness  of  its  subject  was  plausible. 

"  Oh — Charlotte  ?  It  really  was  the  merest  talk  by  the  way. 
She  only  said  it  would  keep  people  from  talking  nonsense." 

"What  would?" 

"  If  the  Grosvenor  Square  young  lady  and  I  were  bosom  friends. 
She  was  joking,  you  know." 

"I  see  what  she  meant,"  said  Challis;  and  seemed  to,  re- 
flectively. But  really  he  was  crossing  Mrs.  Eldridge  out  of  one  or 
two  passages  in  his  good  books  where  her  name  still  occurred.  Con- 
found her!  Couldn't  she  leave  it  to  him  to  instruct  Marianne — 
who  was  much  too  slow  to  find  out  anything  for  herself — on  this 
point?  However,  it  was  best  to  confirm  her,  on  the  whole.  He 
continued :  "  Of  course,  if  it  were  thought  that  you  and  she  were 
at  daggers  drawn,  spiteful  people  would  say  things.  They  always 
do  if  they  get  a  chance.  But  what  I  look  at  is  that  she  is  Aminta 
Torrington.  It's  quite  miraculous.  You  never  saw  anything  so 
happy."  He  quite  forgot  that  lay-figure. 

Marianne  waived  discussion  of  the  dramatic  aspect  of  the  ques- 
tion. She  knew  nothing  about  these  things — was  an  outsider. 
But  she  seemed  to  register  concession  on  the  main  point.  She 
supposed  the  young  woman  must  come,  and  she  could  tell  Charlotte 
and  Maria  Macculloch  and  Lewis  Smithson  to  be  sure  not  to  call 
that  day,  and  then  Harmood  could  say  "not  at  home."  Better 
make  it  Thursday,  and  get  it  over. 

"Didn't  Charlotte  say  anything  else?"  This  was  chiefly  con- 
ciliation on  Challis's  part.  He  did  not  wish  to  seem  in  a  hurry 
to  get  away  from  Mrs.  Eldridge,  or  to  resent  her  discussion  of  his 
affairs. 

"  Oh — she  talked,  of  course !  You  mean  when  I  saw  her  yester- 
day? Only  she  was  still  so  anxious  about  John." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  133 

"He'll  be  all  right,  won't  he?  Did  you  say  peritonitis?  Are 
you  sure  ?  Because  peritonitis  is  the  dooce's  own  delight." 

"  The  doctor  says  there  is  no  occasion  for  the  slightest  uneasi- 
ness." Whereupon  Challis  settled  in  his  own  mind  that  John 
Eldridge  would  be  spared  to  his  wife  and  relatives,  for  the 
present  at  any  rate.  Peritonitis  inside  a  week,  and  no  need 
for  uneasiness  at  the  end  of  it!  He  allowed  the  medical  report 
to  lapse,  and  referred  again  to  what  Charlotte  had  said.  It  cer- 
tainly seemed,  to  judge  by  Marianne's  reply,  "I  thought  she  was 
quite  mistaken,  you  know,"  that  Charlotte  had  "  talked,  of  course," 
although  she  was  so  uneasy  about  John. 

"  What  about  ?  "  But  he  didn't  want  to  seem  to  catechize,  so  he 
discovered  that  his  cigar — which  he  was  quite  half  through — 
didn't  draw  well,  and  lit  another.  Then  he  was  able  to  say,  "  Let's 
see ! — what  were  we  talking  about  ?  What  Charlotte  said."  He  re- 
sumed his  place  beside  his  wife,  too  manifestly  to  receive  the  an- 
swer for  her  to  withhold  it. 

"  It  was  only  general  conversation,  about  what  Miss  Arkroyd's 
family — with  all  their  ideas — would  think  of  her  going  on  the 
stage." 

"My  dear!  I  must  say  I  do  wish  you  hadn't  mentioned  Miss 
Arkroyd  to  her  at  all.  I  hope  you  made  her  understand  she  must 
be  quiet  about  it  ? " 

"  Oh,  she  won't  mention  it — except  perhaps  to  John."  Challis 
looked  alarmed.  However,  John  couldn't  talk  much  at  present, 
even  if  peritonitis  only  meant  obstruction.  "  Besides,  I  didn't 
really  tell  her  anything.  It  was  an  accident.  I  showed  her 
something  else  in  your  letter  a  week  ago,  and  by  the  merest  chance 
she  read  it  by  mistake.  It  wasn't  her  fault." 

"  Nor  yours.     I  see !     But  what  did  she  read  ?  " 

"  Only  where  you  said  you  would  have  to  talk  to  the  old  boy 
about  his  daughter's  stage-mania  .  .  .  nothing  that  could  pos- 
sibly do  any  harm." 

Now,  Challis's  conscience  had  been  uneasy  about  the  part  he  was 
going  to  play  in  helping  Judith  towards  a  secret  arrangement 
which  was  sure  to  outrage  the  feelings  of  her  family.  So,  when 
he  said  "  Oh ! "  to  this,  he  had  to  jump  abruptly  on  to  make  it 
seem  a  casual,  ordinary  "  Oh !  "  He  succeeded  pretty  well.  "  What 
was  Charlotte's  idea  ? "  said  he. 

"  The  same  idea,  of  course.  As  long  as  Sir  Thingummy  knew 
all  about  it,  no  one  could  possibly  blame  you." 

"I  don't  know  that  it's  really  my  concern.  I  don't  know  that 
it's  any  of  our  .  ,.,  .."  A  pause  here  is  due  to  his  duty  to  syn- 


134  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tax.  ...  "I  mean  to  say — that  it  is  the  business  of  any  one  of 
us.  Miss  Arkroyd  is  no  chicken.  In  fact,  I'm  not  sure  that  her 
age  won't  stand  in  her  way — for  training,  I  mean.  However,  of 
course  I  shall  take  care  that  her  family  knows  all  about  it." 
Challis's  voice  sounded  well  in  his  own  ears,  and  he  was  con- 
vinced that  no  fault  could  be  found  with  his  behaviour  so  far.  As 
to  anyone  saying  he  should  not  have  made  the  promise  about  Mr. 
Magnus  of  the  Megatherium  while  he  was  a  trusted  guest  at  Royd, 
that  was  sheer  nonsense.  He  felt  quite  nettled  with  Marianne  for 
saying,  "  Oh,  haven't  you  done  it  ? "  But  he  wasn't  going  to  pro- 
long discussion  about  it. 

He  felt  nettled,  too,  with  himself  for  feeling,  when  Marianne 
left  him  to  read,  before  going  to  bed,  the  letters  that  had  come  for 
him — with  a  charge  to  him  not  to  make  a  noise  when  he  came  up — 
nettled  for  feeling  that  he  had  got  through  the  evening  well,  which 
was  absurd ;  and  that  to  do  so  he  had  assumed  a  certain  roughness 
in  reference  to  Judith,  to  accentuate  his  equable  indifference  to 
her  personally,  which  was  absurder.  What  was  it  all  about? — was 
the  question  he  asked  himself.  And  then  another  that  arose  from 
it  naturally,  What  was  what  all  about?  The  distraction  afforded 
by  a  handful  of  miscellaneous  correspondence  gave  him  an  excuse 
for  ignoring  the  latter  question,  which,  indeed,  seemed  to  him  the 
more  unanswerable  of  the  two. 

One  thing,  however,  he  was  glad  of  having  achieved.  Marianne 
would  write  that  letter,  he  felt  sure.  Only  he  would  just  keep  his 
eye  on  her  to  see  that  she  did  it.  He  would  not  have  to  write  to 
Judith,  "  Please  don't  come  and  see  my  wife! "  in  any  form,  trans- 
parent or  otherwise. 

For  anything  the  story  shows  at  this  point,  Alfred  Challis  and 
Marianne  might  have  tided  over  any  little  difficulties  arising  out 
of  the  visit  to  Royd,  if  they  had  only  been  judiciously  let  alone. 
It  was  those  blessed  Peacemakers! 


CHAPTER  XI 

VATTED  RUM  CORNER,  AND  CHESTNUTS.  A  YOUNG  TURK.  HOW  LIZARANN 
TOLD  MOTHER  GROVES  OF  THE  FLYING  DUTCHMAN.  OF  AN  AM- 
BULANCE, AND  WHAT  WAS  IN  IT.  HOW  LIZARANN  WENT  HOME 
WITHOUT  DADDY 

LIZARANN  COUPLAND  used  to  wonder  how  ever  Daddy  could  go 
out  in  the  cold  and  stop  all  day.  It  was  noble  of  him  to  do  so  in 
the  public  service — that  was  how  Lizarann  thought  of  it.  For  she 
believed  the  insinuations  embodied  in  song  by  "  the  boys  "  in  Tal- 
lack  Street  to  be  malicious  falsehoods,  and  as  for  "  the  boy  "  whose 
aunt  sold  fried  eels  and  winkles  next  door  to  the  shop  where  her 
father  purchased  his  shaving-soap,  she  only  hoped  that  a  good 
basting  her  own  aunt  wished  to  give  to  the  whole  clanjamfray  of 
'em — meaning  boys  generally — might  be  concentrated  on  the  un- 
sheltered person  of  this  particular  boy.  She  had  improved  her  ac- 
quaintance with  him,  and  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  for  pre- 
sumption and  self-conceit,  for  ill  manners  and  very  doubtful  good 
feeling,  that  boy  was  without  a  parallel. 

During  the  whole  of  this  acquaintance  it  had  never  occurred  to 
Lizarann  to  ask  this  boy's  name.  And  but  yesterday  she  had  com- 
mitted the  tactical  error  of  surrendering  her  own  christened  name 
in  exchange  for  peppermint  drops.  The  moment  of  the  present 
writing  is  a  deadly  afternoon  in  January,  gettin'  on  for  four,  but 
that  dark  you'll  have  to  light  the  gas  in  the  end,  and  may  just  as 
well  do  it  at  once.  The  place  is  the  one  spoken  of  in  an  earlier 
chapter  as  Vatted  Rum  Corner,  and  that  boy  is  a  settin'  on  the 
rilin'  eatin'  of  four  'ot  chestnuts  off  of  Mrs.  Groves's  bikin'  trye, 
for  a  'ape'ny,  and  to  be  allowed  to  warm  your  fingers  at  the  grite. 
He  had  had  to  make  room  for  other  customers. 

Lizarann  came  up  cold,  and  envied  the  feast.  The  boy  was  a 
self-indulgent  boy,  or  seemed  so.  For  he  only  said,  "  These  four's 
for  me,  bought  and  paid  for,  square.  You  git  some  for  yourself, 
orf  of  Mother  Groves.  Two  for  a  farden's  your  figger,  Aloyzer." 
And  then  he  sketched  a  clog-dance  on  the  hard-trodden  snow  of  the 
pavement,  with  a  mouth  quite  full  of  chestnuts. 

Lizarann  felt  the  heartlessness  of  his  attitude.  Yesterday  he  had 
cajoled  her  into  an  admission  that  her  name  was  Lizarann  by  of- 

135 


136  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

fering  peppermint  drops.  Now  he  had  nothing  to  gain  by  an 
offer  of  chestnuts,  and  kept  them  all  himself !  She  happened  to  be 
in  funds,  and  could  have  purchased  four  for  a  'ape'ny,  and  in  that 
case  would  as  like  as  not  have  given  that  boy  one,  as  an  exemplar 
towards  generosity.  But  at  the  moment  a  higher  interest  claimed 
her  attention.  He  knew  her  name,  and  she  didn't  know  his.  An 
iniquity,  clearly!  How  could  she  remedy  it? 

Now  Lizarann  had  contrived,  childwise,  a  curious  idea  about 
her  name.  It  may  have  originated  in  a  chant  she  herself  had 
joined  in  frequently,  merely  for  the  sake  of  the  music: 

"  Oh  fle — fie  for  shame  ! 
Everybody   knows   your   name." 

But  it  certainly  had  acquired  its  full  force  from  an  expression 
made  use  of  by  her  Aunt  Stingy,  who  had  spoken  of  a  young  per- 
son as  having  "  lost  her  good  name."  What  the  young  person  was 
called  by  her  friends,  afterwards,  was  a  problem  Lizarann  had 
given  a  good  deal  of  thought  to.  And  she  was  now  unable  to  dis- 
sociate the  young  person's  position  altogether  from  her  own.  If 
her  name  had  not  been  lost  as  a  necessary  implement  of  social  in- 
tercourse with  the  world  at  large,  it  at  least  had  been  surrendered 
with  no  per  contra,  in  the  case  of  an  immoral  and  worthless  mem- 
ber of  it.  But  she  felt  that,  could  she  become  possessed  of  his 
name,  as  a  set-off,  the  balance  of  righteousness  would  be  adjusted. 
And  she  was  much  more  anxious  about  this  than  about  the  chest- 
nuts. 

"What's  your  mme?"  said  she,  after  self -commune  which  sug- 
gested no  less  trenchant  way  of  approaching  the  subject. 

The  boy  paused  in  the  clog-dance.  "Moses,"  said  he.  And 
then  went  on  as  before. 

"  Nuffint  elst  no  more  than  Moses  ? " 

"  That's  tellin's."  The  boy  said  this  absently,  and  did  some 
more  steps.  Then  he  simulated  a  graceful  subsidence  of  the  dance, 
ending  in  an  attitude  that  seemed  to  acknowledge  the  applause  of  a 
delighted  throng.  But  a  commercial  possibility  had  presented  it- 
self. "  What'll  you  stand,"  said  he,  "  for  to  be  told  my  name,  and 
no  lies?"  This  seemed  mercenary;  but  then,  had  not  Lizarann 
herself  surrendered  hers  for  a  deal  ?  Why  condemn  him  ? 

No ! — Lizarann  lived  in  a  glass  house,  and  wouldn't  throw  stones. 
But  she  would  make  conditions.  "Real  nime  all  froo,"  she  said. 
"  Moses  is  lyin'  stories !  "  For,  you  see,  this  was  a  crafty  boy,  and 
might  consider  the  concession  of  a  true  surname  alone  would  dis- 
charge his  obligations  under  the  contract. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  137 

"  Then  on'y  Moses,"  said  he ;  and  began  an  encore — presumably, 
as  it  was  the  same  dance.  But  he  was  not  too  preoccupied  by  it 
to  take  off  the  shell  of  his  fourth  chestnut,  and  when  he  had  done 
so  he  smelt  it,  with  disappointment.  For  it  was  mouldy.  An 
idea  struck  him,  and  he  acted  on  it. 

"  Marcy  me,  no ! "  said  Mother  Groves  of  the  chestnuts  when 
requested  by  him  to  'and  over  a  good  un,  fair  and  no  cheating. 
"  The  riskis  lies  with  the  buyers.  Where  'ud  I  be,  in  half  the  time, 
at  that  rate?" 

"  Then  I'll  'ave  the  law  of  yer.  Just  see  if  I  don't."  He  danced 
again,  and  this  time  his  dance  seemed  to  express  confidence  in  his 
solicitor.  But  presently  he  stopped,  and  offered  a  composition: 
"You  lookee  here,  Missis  Groves,"  he  said.  "I'll  'and  you  back 
the  mouldy  one,  onbit-into  and  closin'  over  the  busted  shell,  acrost  a 
clean  new  un,  and  I'll  take  another  highp'orth  off  you,  and  pay 
square.  If  that  ain't  fair,  nothin'  ain't !  But  you  got  to  look 
sharp,  or  the  chance  '11  be  gone." 

Mother  Groves  rejected  the  chance.  "It  ain't  consideration 
enough  to  go  again'  the  rules  on,  and  me  to  take  my  'ands  out  in 
the  perishing  cold.  Make  it  a  penn'orth  and  pick  yourself,  all 
exceptin'  the  three  top." 

"  Hin't  got  no  penny !  Feel  in  my  porket  and  see.  It's  open  to 
yer  to  feel.  There  hin't  no  horbstickle.  Here's  a  highp'ny  and 
the  bloomin'  nut,  shell  and  all.  Mike  your  mind  up !  " 

But  Mrs.  Groves's  mind  was  made  up,  apparently.  The  boy 
then  suggested  that  his  motives  had  been  the  prosperity  of  trade, 
throughout;  he  was,  in  fact,  or  said  he  was,  full  up  till  dinner- 
time. So  he  must  have  been  dining  late,  recently. 

At  this  point  Lizarann  made  a  proposal.  She,  too,  had  a  half- 
penny, and  was  ready  to  pool  this  halfpenny  with  the  boy's,  and 
give  him  sole  enjoyment  of  the  extra  chestnut,  but  only  on  one 
condition.  He  must  tell  his  name,  and  no  lies. 

Mrs.  Groves  brought  her  hands  out  in  the  perishing  cold — 
pathetic  old  hands,  a  young  girl's  once — and  made  two  even  groups 
of  four  nuts  each.  Then,  leave  being  giv',  the  boy  chose  the  com- 
pensation nut;  only  he  took  his  time  like  a  young  'Eathen  as  he 
was.  Then  Mrs.  Groves,  as  assessor  and  umpire,  required  his 
name  as  a  preliminary  to  final  liquidation. 

"  'Orkins.  Frederick.  Frederick  'Orkins.  Could  have  told  yer 
it  wasn't  Moses  any  day  of  the  week !  'And  over !  "  And  thereon 
he  and  Lizarann  each  had  four  bloomin'  nuts,  so  'ot  you  couldn't 
'ardly  'andle  'em. 

"  I  shall  keep  mine  for  my  daddy,  and  keep  'em  'ot  too,"  said 


138 

Lizarann.  She  placed  them  nearest  her  heart,  and  felt  that  it  was 
good  to  do  so.  They  was  a'most  too  'ot,  in  the  manner  of  speak- 
ing; but  then  a  small  undergarment  protected  her,  when  discreetly 
scroozled  up  fluffy. 

"  You  best  'ide  'em  well  up,"  said  Frederick  Hawkins.  "  Here's 
a  coarper  comin'  along.  Don't  you  let  'em  make  no  show,  or  he'll 
get  his  'and  on  'em." 

But  he  only  said  this  to  perplex  and  annoy,  and  create  unneces- 
sary panic;  and  Lizarann  knew  that,  every  bit  as  well  as  we  do. 
So  she  merely  said:  "Jimmy  'Acker  can  foight  you,"  and  enjoyed 
the  warmth  fearlessly.  Her  daddy's  stick  was  not  audible  yet,  com- 
ing along  by  the  walL  He  was  late  to-day.  Lizarann's  orders 
were  to  wait  at  the  corner  till  she  heard  it,  and  then  call  "  Pilot," 
that  he  might  know  she  was  waiting  for  him,  and  be  happy.  For 
he  always  had  pangs  of  doubt  that  he  might  not  meet  her  this  time. 
Think  of  that  little  thing — for  he  knew  how  small  she  was  still,  by 
the  feel,  though  there  was  no  one  to  tell  him  what  she  was  like  to 
look  at — think  of  her  coming  along  that  crowded  street  alone,  to 
meet  her  daddy!  She  for  her  part  had  no  misgivings  about  his 
coming.  "  Never  you  fear  for  me,  lassie,"  he  had  said.  And  he 
knew,  Law  bless  you ! 

"  I'll  Jimmy  'Acker  'im!"  said  Frederick  Hawkins  boastfully.  "  I 
could  'tend  on  two  like  'im  at  wunst.  How  old  do  you  make  him  ? " 
Which  showed  the  vaingloriousness  of  his  character,  for  clearly  he 
knew  nothing  about  Jimmy  Hacker. 

Lizarann  couldn't  commit  herself  to  the  age  of  the  latter.  But 
she  could  to  his  bulk  and  prowess.  "  He's  thicker  than  you,"  she 
said,  and  added,  with  recollection  of  a  combatant  defeated  by 
J  immy  Hacker :  "  He  can  foight  a  boy  twelve  next  birthday." 

"  Then  he  ain't  any  so  much  to  count  on.  I  don't  go  by  ages. 
Weights  is  what  I  go  by.  Any  number  o'  stun  I  can  foight,  up 
to  eight  stun  seven.  You  tell  'im  to  keep  indoors,  or  I'll  fetch  him 
somethin'  for  to  rek'lect  me  by.  You  see !  " 

But  Mother  Groves  interposed  to  rebuke  and  check  this  inflated 
and  defiant  spirit.  "  Don't  you  pay  no  attention  to  that  boy,  my 
dear,"  said  she  to  Lizarann.  "He's  that  full  of  lip  there's  no 
placin'  no  reliance  on  a  word  he  says.  If  I  was  his  mother  I  should 
know  just  where  he  wanted  a  good  canin'.  Ah! — and  he'd  get  it 
too,  night  or  mornin'.  A  young  cock-sparrer  7  call  him,  and  if  he 
don't  come  by  a  bad  end  it'll  be  a  moral.  Ah ! — wait  till  I  find  out 
where  your  mother  lives,  and  see."  Mrs.  Groves  worked  rising  in- 
dignation into  her  speech,  after  the  manner  of  her  class.  Even  so 
the  Choctaw  or  Cherokee  stimulates  himself  to  battle-point.  But 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  139 

Frederick  Hawkins  remained  unmoved.  He  knew  the  old  woman 
couldn't  ketch  holt  upon  him.  He  became  most  offensive,  assum- 
ing a  nasal  drone  with  an  approach  to  a  chant. 

"  I  got  a  widdered  mother.  She  keeps  a  fish-shop.  And  I  ain't 
a-goin',  neither,  for  to  tell  you  where."  He  threw  a  reminiscence 
of  his  previous  dance  into  this. 

Now  Lizarann  knew  perfectly  well  that  the  fish-shop  was  next 
door  to  where  her  daddy  bought  his  shaving-soap.  But  she  wasn't 
going  to  tell.  No  nice  little  boy  or  girl  ever  tells.  The  par- 
ticulars kept  back  on  principle  may  relate  to  young  cock-sparrows 
on  whom  no  reliance  can  be  placed,  or  to  mere  heathens — as  in  the 
present  instance — but  as  for  acquaintin'  their  parents,  guardians, 
or  other  responsible  grown-up  persons,  what  they  done,  or  any- 
thing likely  to  lead  to  conviction — who  ever  heard  of  such  a  thing  ? 
Even  the  London  servant  class  retains  this  one  trace  of  an 
honourable  usage.  It  won't  tell. 

Mother  Groves  merely  referred  to  the  ease  of  discovering  fish- 
shops;  especially  when  localized,  as  this  one  practically  was,  by 
the  constant  presence  round  her  corner  of  a  heathen  residing  there. 
She  then  gave  all  her  attention  to  the  conservation  of  vital  heat; 
and  it  was  needed,  for  her  poor  old  clothes  were  thin  on  her  poor 
old  body.  It  wasn't  'ardly  a  reg'lar  bad  day,  not  to  call  it  so,  but 
it  was  a  frost  that  was  going  to  give  a  lift  to  the  plumbin'  trade, 
and  do  a  rare  lot  of  good  that  way.  For  the  only  good  that  can 
come  now  to  this  world  is  evidently  through  the  destruction  of. 
something  it  has  worked  at  the  making  of  in  years  past,  in  order 
that  people  who  have  little  may  have  to  pay  people  who  have  less 
to  do  a  bit  of  repairs  to  it,  so  that  it  won't  want  no  lookin'  to 
again,  not  yet  awhile. 

Can  we  wonder  ? — we  who  have  read,  for  instance,  of  the  revived 
prosperity  of  ship-building,  shown  by  the  putting  down  on  the 
stocks  of  several  new  .  .  .  destroyers?  But  never  mind  this! — 
pardon  it  and  get  back  to  the  story  and  the  degrees  of  frost  at 
Vatted  Rum  Corner. 

It  wasn't  so  bad  then,  not  when  once  you  was  out  in  it;  it  had 
been  a  tidy  sight  worse  two  days  ago,  afore  it  froze  so  hard  under- 
foot ;  why — the  busses  couldn't  keep  goin',  and  a  'orse  fell  down  so 
soon  as  ever  you  got  him  on  his  feet!  And  as  for  cabs,  they 
wouldn't  set  foot  outside  of  the  yard,  because  where  was  the  use? 
You  couldn't  stiddy  yourself  on  your  feet,  not  unless  there  was 
cenders  on  the  track,  or  thored  with  boiling  water. 

Lizarann  bore  it  bravely,  in  spite  of  chilblains  and  a  blue  com- 
plexion. Frederick  Hawkins  was  blue;  but  either  his  heathenism 


140  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

or  some  other  attribute  enabled  him  to  bear  the  cold  defiantly. 
"  It  ain't  f reezin'  here,"  said  he,  denying  the  obvious.  "  Hic*»y 
cold  it  was  Bart'sey  Park  Sunday.  The  hice  makes  it  cold  'acos 
of  the  skatin'."  And  Lizarann  accepted  this  view  of  cause  and 
effect.  She  might  have  disputed  it  had  she  not  been  beginning  to 
feel  uneasy  about  her  daddy. 

"  Why,  child,  don't  ye  go  along  to'ards  meetin'  him  ?  He'll  be 
comin',  I  lay."  Thus  Mother  Groves.  And  the  boy  added :  "  Why 
don't  yer  'ook  it  along  down  to  the  Rilewye,  to  see  for  yourself? 
You  'ook  it!  'Ook  it  orf!  I'm  tellin'  of  yer."  But  Lizarann 
only  stood  on  her  two  feet  alternately,  and  hugged  the  dying  heat 
of  the  chestnuts.  They  wouldn't  be  no  good  for  daddy.  Alas! 

"  I  was  tolded  not  to  do  it,"  said  she.    "  Yass !  " 

Mrs.  Groves  approved.  "  Quite  right,  my  dear,  not  to  disobey 
your  parents.  But  your  daddy  he'll  come,  you'll  see." 

But  Frederick  Hawkins  had  another  code  of  morals.  "I'd  dis- 
obey my  parents  if  I  had  any  to  speak  on.  If  I'd  a  dozen  on  'em, 
I'd  disobey  the  bilin'."  Mrs.  Groves  pointed  out  that  by  doing 
this  Frederick  would  be  brought  into  collision  with  his  Creator,  and 
dwelt  on  the  impolicy  of  such  an  action.  But  he  continued  ob- 
durate. 

"  I'd  disobey  the  kit  on  'em.  You'd  see,  if  you  kep'  your  eye 
open."  Then,  addressing  Lizarann,  he  added:  "You  give  me  a 
chestnut,  and  I'll  disobey  your  parents  for  yer.  You  jist  try !  See 
if  I  don't !  "  Then,  when  Lizarann  timidly  produced  the  chestnut, 
in  great  doubt  of  whether  her  action  was  justifiable,  he  added: 
"  See  if  I  ain't  back  again  afore  yer  know  where  y*  are,"  and, 
after  a  slight  preliminary  quick-step  or  double-shuffle,  fled  away 
into  the  growing  dusk. 

"You  keep  your  sperrits  up,  child,"  said  Mother  Groves.  And, 
as  is  usual  when  one  hears  that  one's  spirits  want  keeping  up, 
Lizarann's  went  down.  But  she  felt  the  old  lady's  goodwill,  and 
went  and  stood  close  up  to  her,  taking  care  to  choose  the  side  away 
from  the  roasting-box,  lest  she  should  seem  simply  seeking  warmth. 
However,  she  was  soon  invited  round  to  the  other  side.  The 
warmth  made  her  communicative. 

"My  daddy  he's  been  to  sea,"  she  said.  "Only  in  real  ships, 
and  come  home  again.  The  Flying  Dutchman  she  never  come 
home."  This  did  not  explain  itself  to  Mrs.  Groves.  She  drew  a 
false  inference. 

"  She  went  to  the  bottom,  I  lay.  And  all  aboard  of  her  belike. 
Lord  be  good  to  us ! " 

Lizarann  shook  her  head.    "Not  the  Dutchman.     She's  afloat, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  141 

every  spar  on  her," — she  religiously  gave  Jim's  exact  words,  with 
a  sense  of  saying  a  lesson — "  and  to  stop  afloat  till  the  Lord  comes 
to  judge  sinners  from  repentance."  She  got  a  little  confused  here, 
but  it  sounded  good,  and  her  hearer  was  impressed. 

"  Now  only  'ark  at  that ! "  said  she.  "  I'd  'a  said  you  was  a 
God-fearin'  child.  And  you  may  never  need  doubt  but  it's  all  true, 
my  dear ! "  Mrs.  Groves,  perhaps,  was  prepared  to  ascribe  truth 
to  any  narrative  that  had  a  religious  phrase  or  two  in  it;  still,  she 
was  probably  impressed  with  the  little  person's  manner,  for  she 
referred  to  Frederick  Hawkins,  in  contrast.  "  Now,  that  young 
Turk,  he's  no  respect,  and  won't  come  to  no  good  end,  I  lay." 

But  Lizarann  didn't  want  the  conversation  coaxed  away  from 
the  Flying  Dutchman.  "  Daddy  seen  her,  himself,"  she  said  fer- 
vently ;  and  then,  resuming  the  lesson-manner :  "  Every  stitch  o' 
sail  on  her  set  in  a  three-quarter  gale  freshenin'  from  the  south. 
And  the  look-out  forward,  he  seen  her  too.  And  Job  Collins,  he 
seen  her.  And  Marmaduke  Flyn,  he  seen  her.  And  Peter  Cort- 
right,  he  seen  her."  All  these  were  essential  items  of  the  often- 
told  tale. 

Mother  Groves's  hearing  was  none  of  the  best;  so  when  she  con- 
demned the  time-honoured  legend  as  outlandish  and  French,  it  may 
be  she  had  really  supposed  that  some  of  the  expressions  were  in  a 
foreign  tongue,  any  variety  of  which  she  would  naturally  consider 
French,  failing  instruction  to  the  contrary.  But  Lizarann's  refer- 
ence to  the  Lord,  to  sinners,  and  to  repentance,  was  strong  enough 
in  itself  to  keep  suspicions  of  Voltaire  and  Tom  Paine  in  abeyance. 
•Mrs.  Groves  therefore  allowed  the  story  to  continue,  and  felt 
fortified  against  the  heresies  abounding  on  the  Continent  by  the 
approved  religious  bias  of  the  narrator. 

"  Peter  Cortright  and  Marmaduke  Flyn  they  was  both  on  the 
mainyard  reefin',  alongside  o'  my  daddy,  and  Job  Collins  he  was 
aft  by  the  binnacle.  Then  Peter  Cortright  he  sings  out  to  my 
daddy  to  look;  and  my  daddy  he  looked  and  seen  her,  carryin'  all 
sail  afore  the  wind.  And  then,  no  more  time  than  what  you  says 
budget  in,  she  was  agone  away,  out  o'  sight."  A  pause  came  here, 
for  dramatic  impressiveness.  Then  followed,  for  reinforcement  of 
testimony :  "  But  Job  Collins,  he  seen  her,  too,  plain !  " 

Mrs.  Groves  only  said,  "  My  sakes,  now ! — to  think  of  that." 
But  rather  as  a  courtesy  to  the  narrator.  She  would  no  doubt 
have  followed  her  meaning  better  if  thawed  indoors  before  a  nice 
warm  fire.  She  certainly  could  not,  or  did  not,  admit  to  her  mind 
a  comparison  that  surely  hung  on  the  outskirts  of  the  tale — a 
parallel  between  that  moment  on  the  great  sea,  and  now!  To 


142  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

think  of  it  all!  Of  the  three  reefers  out  on  the  yard,  struggling 
with  the  mighty  wind;  of  the  rising  seas  whose  crested  foam  it 
blew  to  spray;  of  its  voice  as  it  whistled  through  the  drenched 
cordage,  and  made  a  whisper  of  the  sailor's  shout  to  his  mate,  that 
spoke  of  the  ship  he  saw  out  yonder — the  ship  that,  whatever  she 
really  was,  was  to  become  the  Flying  Dutchman  in  the  memories 
of  all  the  three!  And  then  to  think  of  what  that  child — that  al- 
most baby  girl — told  about  her  as  she  nestled,  welcome  enough,  to 
the  side  of  the  old  soul  that  had  spent  her  last  decade  selling,  in  the 
London  Streets,  the  chestnuts  that  had  ripened  in  the  southern 
sun,  above  the  slopes  the  vines  grew  on.  To  think  of  the  sordid 
and  darkened  lives,  closed  round  in  the  intolerable  hive  of  their 
own  contriving,  so  stunted  and  suborned  to  a  spurious  contentment 
as  never  to  long  for  an  escape;  so  strange  to  the  meaning  of  the 
word  "  rejoicing "  as  to  find  a  version  of  it  in  the  filth-house  at 
the  corner;  whose  swing-door,  to  say  the  truth,  the  little  maid 
looks  rather  enviously  at  as  it  opens  and  closes,  letting  out  the 
vapid  bawlings  from  the  human  fools  within  into  the  silence  of  the 
streets,  and  suggesting  jolly  bad  ale  and  new  to  the  cold  and  empty 
passer-by!  To  think  of  the  millions  near  at  hand,  all  sunless  be- 
neath the  great  black  pall  that  has  for  weeks  past  shrouded  their 
visible  world,  but  has  left  them  unchoked  as  yet  and  confident,  and 
even  a  little  boastful — Heaven  knows  why! — of  some  strange  in- 
definite advantages  carbon  and  sulphur  confer  on  those  who  can 
breathe  them  and  live. 

No  two  items  of  the  parallels  could  be  more  unlike,  surely,  than 
the  reefers  out  on  the  yard  in  the  great  sea  wind,  and  such  chance 
wayfarers  as  are  to  be  seen  now — few  enough,  for  all  who  can 
keep  indoors  prefer  to  do  so — making  the  best  of  their  slippery  way 
home,  let  us  hope,  to  the  native  joint  and  vegetables  and  rice- 
pudding.  Certainly — so  one  would  have  said — none  more  unlike 
than  those  of  this  approaching  crowd,  close  on  the  heels  of  three 
policemen  in  charge  of  a  wheeled  ambulance,  hand-driven,  work- 
ing slowly  along  the  least  slippery  part  of  the  road.  And  most 
unlike  of  all,  surely,  the  human  burden,  sot  or  reprobate  perhaps, 
that  the  closed  curtain  of  the  ambulance  hides  from  us.  But  he 
would  have  been  wrong  who  said  so.  For  it  was  Jim  himself  that 
was  inside  that  ambulance,  and  he  ought  by  rights  to  have  come 
along  that  road  on  his  feet 

"You  lie  still,  my  good  feller.  The  doctor  he'll  see  to  you." 
The  policeman  who  says  this  to  the  interior  of  the  ambulance  says 
it  as  one  to  whom  any  form  of  poll-parrotting — that  is  to  say, 
human  speech — is  distasteful.  He  slaps  his  gloves  for  warmth,  as 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  143 

he  walks  beside  the  ambulance.  He  is  a  reserve  man,  who  has  come 
out  in  charge  of  it.  But  a  moment  after  he  listens  again;  there 
may  be  exceptions,  after  all,  to  a  rule  of  universal  glum  silence! 
What  is  this  ambulance  case  saying? 

"  It  ain't  for  myself,  master.  It's  for  my  little  lass.  She  comes 
for  to  fetch  me  home  to  the  Green  Man  .  .  .  house  at  the  corner 
.  .  .  very  nigh  to  us  now,  as  I  take  it.  ..."  Jim's  voice  is  bad, 
and  he  is  speaking  against  pain,  gallantly.  A  subordinate  con- 
stable says,  "  That's  so,  too !  "  and  this  confirmation  reinforces  Jim, 
who  goes  on,  recognizing  the  voice :  "  Your  mate,  he  knows  her. 
You'll  tell  her,  master.  I'll  trust  ye  for  a  good  man  .  .  . 
there's  only  a  little  bit  of  harm  done  .  .  .  say  I've  had  worse 
happen  many  a  time  afore.  ..."  But  Jim  is  at  the  end  of  his 
tether.  His  voice  goes  faint.  His  instruction  was  clear,  though. 

"  See  for  the  child,  Clancy,"  says  the  first  officer.  "  And  tell  'em 
at  the  bar  to  send  out  a  small  brandy."  Clancy  goes  on  ahead.  He 
is  a  person  incapable  of  feeling  surprise,  so  when  he  meets  a 
potboy  approaching  with  a  glass  of  brandy,  he  makes  no  useless 
inquiries,  but  merely  points  backward  towards  the  approaching 
ambulance. 

The  potboy  carries  the  brandy  on,  and  the  officer  gets  it  down 
Jim's  throat  somehow.  "  Very  smart  of  you,  Thomas,"  says  he,  in- 
venting a  name  for  the  potboy,  a  complete  stranger  to  him. 
"  Nothin'  like  being  beforehand !  " 

But  Thomas  disclaims  any  credit  for  himself.  His  action  was, 
he  affirms,  due  to  instructions  transmitted  to  him  by  a  young  cus- 
tomer. His  report  is:  "He  cuts  in  and  he  says,  says  he,  p'leece 
accident,  he  says.  Pickford's  waggon  gone  over  a  bloke,  he  says. 
You  cut  along  out  with  a  nip  o'  brandy  for  a  stimilant,  he  says. 
That's  what  the  orficer  says,  he  says.  And  off  he  goes !  "  As  the 
brandy  is  consumed,  it  clearly  will  be  a  good  contribution  to  taci- 
turnity to  say  nothing  about  it.  Moreover,  the  potboy,  miscalled 
Thomas,  conveys  that  his  governor,  at  the  Man,  is  not  a  blooming 
screw;  and  that  the  brandy  ain't  worth  going  to  law  aboxit.  The 
officer  suggests,  however,  that  a  second  nip  would  not  be  unwel- 
come to  himself,  and  would  bring  the  total  up  to  the  point  of  being 
chargeable  to  the  Force. 

There  is  time  for  all  this,  as  a  case  of  this  sort  must  be  car- 
ried gently,  apart  from  the  fact  that  the  slippery  road  makes  cau- 
tion necessary.  And  by  the  time  the  ambulance  reaches  the  corner 
Lizarann  is  sticking  to  loyally,  mindful  to  the  last  of  her  promise 
never  to  go  beyond  where  it  was  wrote  up  "  Old  Vatted  Hum,"  her 
first  tendency  to  break  into  panic-stricken  sobs,  on  hearing  that  her 


144  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

daddy  has  had  an  accident,  is  already  well  under  control;  the 
policeman  Clancy,  whom  she  knows  by  sight,  and  has  even  spoken 
with,  and  who  therefore  is  trustworthy,  having  told  her  that  her 
daddy  will  soon  come  round,  and  never  be  a  penny  the  worse. 

"  Now  you're  going  to  be  a  good  little  girl,  ain't  you,  and  not 
make  a  shine  ? "  Thus  the  policeman,  on  vernacular  lines,  sup- 
posed to  be  soothing  to  the  excitable.  And  Mother  Groves,  partly 
in  deference  to  a  uniform,  adds :  "  You  do  like  the  gentleman  tells 
you,  my  dear,  and  go  along  where  he  says !  "  This  suggests  to 
Clancy,  who  had  at  first  intended  to  limit  himself  to  negative  in- 
junctions, to  say :  "  Yes,  you  run  along  home,  little  miss,  and  tell 
'em  your  daddy's  being  took  proper  care  of." 

But  the  terrified  scrap,  blue  with  the  cold,  half -choked  with  the 
hysterical  gasps  she  is  fighting  against  so  bravely,  as  bidden,  sees 
a  deadlier  possibility  still  before  her  in  her  arrival  at  home  with- 
out her  daddy.  It  was  the  dread  of  having  to  tell,  more  than  the 
fear  of  being  accounted  the  responsible  culprit,  that  kept  her  glued 
to  the  spot.  She  was  docility  itself  towards  constituted  authorities 
of  all  sorts,  but  now  her  feet  simply  would  not  move.  Oh,  what  a 
huge  relief  it  was  when  the  other  policeman,  him  along  of  the 
hospital-barrer,  said :  "  Ketch  that  kid,  some  of  you,  and  bring  her 
along  this  way !  Can't  wait  here  all  day !  "  He  slammed  his  hands 
one  across  the  other  very  hard,  not  only  to  procure  circulation,  but 
to  express  promptitude. 

The  kid  didn't  want  any  bringing.  She  was  across  the  road  and 
beside  the  ambulance  before  the  instruction  to  catch  her  could  be 
obeyed.  "  You'll  do  your  daddy  more  harm  than  good,  that  way!  " 
said  the  hand-slapper,  stopping  short.  Lizarann's  first  instinct,  to 
scramble  up  the  hospital-barrer — to  get  at  her  daddy  on  any  terms 
— had  to  be  combated  on  his  behalf.  "  Peck  the  child  up,  and  'old 
her  acrost  the  edge,"  suggests  the  potboy  from  "  The  Man."  The 
constable  remarks,  "  Some  o'  the  public  '11  be  feeling  dry  by  now, 
and  nobody  to  serve  'em!  You  best  carry  that  empty  glass  back, 
Thomas."  But  he  accepts  Thomas's  suggestion,  and  Lizarann  is 
grateful  to  the  strong  hands  that  pick  her  up  to  kiss  her  daddy's 
face.  Was  it  really  his? — she  thinks  to  herself,  as  they  put  her 
down  again  out  of  her  father's  sight,  below  the  couch-rim  of  the 
ambulance.  She  can't  speak ;  he  can. 

"  Ye  never  cried  '  Pi-lot'  little  lass."  How  hard  he  tried  to  make 
his  voice  cheerful,  and  how  well  he  succeeded,  too! — mere  mass 
of  breathless  pain  that  he  was.  The  least  word  a  man  can  speak 
over  whom  a  waggon  has  passed,  crushing  both  legs,  will  show  the 
constitution  of  a  giant  behind  it,  even  if  it  is  followed  perforce  by 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  145 

a  groan;  and  Jim  suppressed  even  that.  Were  not  those  his  little 
lass's  lips  that  had  just  touched  his  cheek?  She,  poor  child,  could 
only  say  "  Daddy ! "  or  mix  it  with  a  sob.  Which  of  the  two  Jim 
heard,  who  can  say?  But  just  at  that  moment  the  nip  of  brandy 
began  to  tell,  and  Jim  was  able  to  make  a  great  effort.  "  Never  you 
fret,  little  lass,"  he  said.  "  The  ship's  doctor,  he'll  make  a  square 
job  of  my  leg.  You  run  away  home  and  say  I'm  took  proper  care 
of."  What  Lizarann's  daddy  said  was  to  be  done  was  the  thing  to 
do,  past  doubt,  and  nothing  else  could  be  right.  Lizarann  started 
straight  for  home. 

Poor  Jim ! — he  knew  what  he  was  and  where  he  was  well  enough. 
But  he  couldn't  find  his  words  right.  So  he  talked  of  the  ship's 
doctor,  knowing  all  the  while  that  the  surgeon  of  the  Z  division 
was  going  to  attend  to  his  leg.  As  to  the  extent  of  his  hurt  and 
how  it  came  about,  he  knew  almost  as  little  as  the  story  does,  so  far. 
All  he  was  sure  of  was  that  he  lost  his  bearings  after  leaving  his 
precious  board  at  the  barber's  shop,  was  shouted  at  to  stand  clear, 
didn't  stand  clear,  and  was  overwhelmed  by  what  he  should  have 
stood  clear  of,  and  knocked  silly.  Beyond  that,  the  little  that  had 
reached  him,  since  he  recovered  consciousness,  related  so  much  to 
the  prophetic  certainty  of  its  speakers  that  what  had  happened 
had  been  sure  to  happen,  and  they  could  have  foreseen  it  any  day, 
that  it  made  him  little  the  wiser.  And  what  the  crash  had  left  of 
his  faculties  was  too  actively  employed  about  his  child  to  feel 
curious  about  the  details  of  the  accident. 

Lizarann's  first  information  about  it,  as  she  completed  the  legend 
of  the  Flying  Dutchman  to  Mother  Groves,  was  from  the  boy 
Hawkins,  who  came  running  to  report  the  disaster,  just  as  she  was 
standing  cross-examination  on  her  first  deposition.  Instead  of 
coming  straight,  he  just  in  at  one  door  of  the  ale  'us,  and  out  at  the 
other,  like  you  might  have  said,  only  half  a  minute  between!  He 
then  come  crassin'  over — this  was  Mrs.  Groves's  experience — and 
queer  he  looked,  causing  Lizarann  to  ask,  "  Ain't  my  daddy  there  ?  " 
in  alarm.  To  which  his  reply  was  alarming  and  ambiguous :  "  Oh 
ah! — he's  there  all  right  enough — wot  there  is  of  him."  He  did 
not  improve  this  by  beginning,  in  a  throat-clearing,  gasping  way, 
like  a  boy  whose  speech  has  lost  its  orientation,  "  I  say, 
Missis  ..."  Whereat  Lizarann,  in  growing  terror,  broke  into 
hysterical  sobs,  and  would  have  started  in  her  despair  along  the 
forbidden  way,  if  the  sad  procession  with  the  ambulance  had  not 
appeared,  and  chilled  her  to  the  marrow.  She  could  hear  the  boy, 
greatly  relieved  by  the  appearance  of  direct  evidence  of  what  had 


146  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

happened,  saying  that  there  was  nothing  to  make  a  hollerin'  about; 
it  was  only  a  haccident,  and  wot  could  you  expect,  a  day  like 
this  ?  His  anxiety  to  minimize  the  evil  did  credit  to  a  human  heart 
that  seemed,  in  spite  of  appearances  to  the  contrary,  to  underlie  his 
Asiatic  nature.  He  was  even  attempting  further  exhortation 
towards  fortitude  when  the  policeman  came  up,  and  he  vanished. 
In  a  very  few  minutes  all  were  gone  but  Mother  Groves  and  the 
chestnut  stove,  in  the  yellow  gloom  of  the  growing  fog,  waiting 
for  the  grandson  of  the  former  to  come  and  see  to  the  gettin'  of  'em 
both  home.  As  the  old  woman  looked  back  on  the  event,  it  pre- 
sented itself  to  her  as  an  accident,  and  the  accident  had  been  took 
to  the  Hospital.  That  was  all.  On'y,  that  poor  little  thing!  But 
Mrs.  Groves  soon  forgot  her,  and  was  back  on  a  great  problem  of 
her  life — would  the  stove  last  out  her  time,  with  a  bit  of  patching 
now  and  again?  It  had  been  that  patched  already,  and  was  near 
falling  to  pieces.  And  when  her  grandson  come,  late,  she'd  a'most 
forgotten  the  accident.  There  now,  she  declared  if  she  hadn't! 

Lizarann  pattered  on  as  hard  as  she  could  go,  so  many  steps  to  a 
sob,  until  she  got  to  Dartley  Street,  and  then  she  heard,  behind  her, 
the  boy  Frederick  Hawkins,  out  of  breath.  "  You  ain't  any  call 
for  to  watercart,  young  un,"  said  he.  His  manner  was  superior 
and  offensive,  but  Lizarann  felt  that  benevolent  intention  com- 
bined in  it  with  masculine  dignity.  Still,  protest  was  called  for. 

"  I  hin't  a-cryin' !  "  she  said.  "  On'y  my  d-daddy — he's  t-took 
to  the  Hospital ! "  It  was  too  dreadful,  put  into  words,  and  Lizar- 
ann broke  down  over  it. 

"  Who  do  yer  call  the  worse  by  that?  He  ain't,  not  he! "  This 
boy  means  well.  His  better  nature  is  roused,  but  he  has  no  mode 
of  spe'ech  that  is  not  truculent  or  threatening.  He  softens  a  lit- 
tle, though,  as  he  becomes  communicative :  "  Why,  I  had  two  uncles 
and  a  aunt,  flat  they  was,  under  a  street-roller  I  And  they  just 
off  with  'em  to  the  Horspital,'  and,  my  eyes  and  witals! — you 
should  a*  seen  'em  no  better  than  a  fortnit  after!  Singin'  they 
wos!" 

Lizarann  disbelieved  this  story,  but  not  because  of  the  main  in- 
cident. It  was  the  singing  that  stuck  in  the  gizzard  of  her 
credulity.  Uncles  and  aunts  never  sang.  They  might  be  raised 
from  the  dead;  may  not  Lazarus  have  had  a  niece?  But  singing! 
— no !  She  merely  summarized  her  views,  not  arguing  the  point : 
"  They  never  sang  nuffint." 

A  proud  spirit  brooks  no  contradiction.  "  Ain't  I  tellin'  of 
yer?"  said  the  Turk  indignantly.  He  adduced  corroborative  evi- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  147 

dence.  "Why! — warn't  a  boy-makes-his-livin'-by-daily-journals-I- 
knows's  father's  corpse  h'isted  up  out  of  a  shore  and  took  to  the 
Horspital  stone-dead  with  the  un'olesome  atmosphere  and  fetched  to? 
And  dined  off  of  nourishin'  food  the  same  evening,  and  rezoomed 
work  on  the  Monday  ? "  Meeting  no  expression  of  doubt  of  this 
case,  he  adduced  another,  more  calmly.  "  Likewise  Tom  Scott,  as 
'arf  killed  Parker  for  five  pounds  a  side,  he  picked  up  six  of  his 
teeth  he'd  knocked  out,  he  did;  and  he  run  after  him  to  the 
Horspital,  he  did;  and  they  stuck  'em  in  again  for  Mr.  Parker, 
they  did,  as  good  as  new.  They  can  do  most  anyihin'"  So  it  ap- 
peared. And  the  cases  gained  greatly  in  credibility  by  the  Turk's 
obviously  true  recitation  of  maturer  ideas  than  his  own  in  the  lan- 
guage of  seniors.  It  was  like  Lizarann's  own  tale  of  the  Flying 
Dutchman;  and  she  felt  it  so,  and  found  solace  accordingly.  She 
hoped  the  Turk  would  go  all  the  way  with  her,  to  give  moral  sup- 
port, and  repeat  his  experience.  You  see,  this  Turk  was,  to  her 
vision,  big,  authoritative,  and  mature.  He  did  not  present  himself 
to  her  as  an  impident  young  sprat,  in  want  of  local  smacking. 
Which  no  doubt  would  have  been  Mrs.  Steptoe's  view  of  him  had  ho 
come  all  the  way.  But  he  forsook  Lizarann  at  the  top  of  Tallack 
Street,  leaving  her  grateful  to  him,  all  the  more  for  his  narration 
of  how  he  heard  the  blooming  copper  say  a  nip  o'  brandy  wouldn't 
be  amiss  as  a  stimilant,  and  he  told  'em  at  the  Green  Man.  He 
added  that  he  expected  to  be  proarsecuted  for  telling  of  'em — re- 
calling a  little  the  saying  of  the  third  Napoleon,  that  the  Human 
Race  always  crucifies  its  Messiahs. 

So  there  stands  Lizarann  trembling  on  the  doorstep,  after  jump- 
ing up  to  the  knocker  to  strike  it  back  and  leave  it  to  execute  a 
single  knock  by  itself,  and  watching  the  great  white  flakes  of 
snow  that  are  beginning  to  fall  at  their  leisure — no  hurry — plenty 
of  time  yet  for  three  inches  deep  of  them  and  their  mates  before 
the  milk  comes  in  the  morning! 


CHAPTER  XII 

HOW  UNCLE  BOB  HAD  THE  HORRORS.  HOW  LIZARANN  ATE  COLD  CHEST- 
NUTS IN  BED.  DELIRIUM  TREMENS.  HOW  JIM  COULD  SEE  AT  NIGHT, 
AND  WAS  UNDER  THE  BED.  POLICE ! 

LIZARANN  could  not  shut  her  eyes  to  the  difference  between  Aunt 
Stingy,  as  she  anticipated  her  on  the  doorstep,  and  the  Police 
Force,  according  to  her  last  impression  of  it.  Her  aunt's  was  not 
a  bosom  she  could  fly  to  for  solace  in  her  trouble — well!  no  more 
was  that  of  the  Force,  if  you  insist  on  literalness  up  to  the  hilt; 
but  metaphorically  she  would  far  sooner  have  had  recourse  to  the 
latter  than  the  former.  She  did  not,  however,  expect  penalties 
this  time  if  she  could  get  in  her  explanation;  but  she  had  doubts 
whether  the  shortness  of  her  aunt's  temper  would  allow  of  its  de- 
velopment at  sufficient  length  to  be  understood. 

She  tried  to  think  of  some  quick  thing  to  say  that  would  at  once 
reveal  her  daddy's  mishap  and  the  cause  of  her  return  without 
him.  But  she  should  have  done  it  before  that  sepulchral  single 
knock  had  shown  the  executive  power  of  the  knocker,  and  brought 
out  by  contrast  the  footless,  hoofless,  wheelless  silence  of  Tallack 
Street.  Now  that  its  summons  to  open  had  been  delivered,  the  poor 
little  shivering  author  of  it  could  think  of  nothing  at  all.  She 
might  have  done  so,  though,  as  far  as  time  went,  for  she  had  to 
repeat  her  knock  after  a  pause  her  terror  made  to  seem  short; 
while  to  her  eagerness  for  any  human  voice — even  Uncle  Bob's — it 
seemed  awfully  long.  But,  as  it  turned  out,  the  best  she  could  have 
thought  of  would  have  been  of  little  use. 

The  second  knock  brought  about  a  shuffling  in  the  house  that 
fluctuated  a  moment,  threatened  to  subside  as  it  had  begun,  then 
seemed  to  decide  on  action,  and  approached  the  door — but  heavily, 
being  palpably  Uncle  Bob,  whose  mission  seemed  to  be  considered 
complete  by  the  household  when  he  had  stood  the  door  on  the  jar, 
and  left  it,  without  waiting  to  see  who  had  knocked.  Of  course,  it 
could  only  have  been  Jim  and  the  child.  So  it  looked  as  if  Mr. 
Steptoe  had  decided  that  his  duty  was  discharged  by  removing  ob- 
stacles to  their  entry,  and  leaving  them  to  close  the  door  their  own 
way.  He'd  stood  the  candle  down  and  just  left  it  to  gutter  in  the 

148 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  149 

passage,  when  Lizarann  got  inside  of  the  house.  There  was  some- 
thing gone  wrong  there,  too,  evidently. 

As  her  uncle  was  in  the  habit  of  using  the  adjectives  popular  in 
his  class  rather  freely,  Lizarann  was  not  surprised  when,  supposing 
himself  to  be  addressing  her  father,  and  asking  him  to  "  shet  to  that 
door  and  keep  the  cold  cut  of  the  house,"  he  prefixed  one  open  to 
many  objections  to  each  of  his  three  substantives.  But  she  was 
surprised  at  the  tone  of  his  voice,  which  chattered  in  gusts,  as 
though  control  over  it  went  and  came,  and  at  the  way  he  was 
crouching  over  the  fire.  He  had  spoken  to  her  father  as  Jim,  and 
evidently  was  taking  him  for  granted — had  grasped  no  facts. 

"Please,  where's  Aunt  Stingy?"  The  child  could  think  of  no 
better  thing  to  say.  Something  was  altogether  too  wrong  with 
her  uncle.  She  could  see  he  was  shaking.  All  things  were  all 
wrong  clearly,  and  the  world  a  nightmare ! 

"  In  her  bed,  mayhap ! — shamming  ill,  I  take  it."  Then  he 
raised  his  voice,  but  never  looked  round :  "  Jim ! — why  can't  you 
shut  up  that  da-da-damned  d-d-door  and  come  inside  ? "  He  had  a 
fair  convulsion  over  those  words,  more  like  the  chattering  fit  that 
sometimes  comes  before  a  bad  attack  of  sea-sickness  than  the  effects 
of  ordinary  cold.  Many  may  not  know  this  sort. 

"  Father  ain't  here,"  was  all  Lizarann  could  say. 

"  Then  shet  to  the  damned  door  till  he  comes."  He  could  say 
this  and  never  look  round,  or  notice  the  sob-broken  voice,  all 
a-strain  with  its  terrors,  of  the  little  speaker.  If  he  had  only  cursed 
her  for  crying,  it  would  have  sounded  sane  by  comparison. 
Lizarann  wished  herself  back  in  the  street,  with  the  Turk.  And 
how  happy  those  few  minutes  seemed  now,  when  she  did  not 
know  about  daddy,  and  was  telling  Mother  Groves  about  the  Fly- 
ing Dutchman! 

She  could  only  stand  speechless  and  utterly  terrified  at  the 
oddity  of  her  uncle's  manner — she  well  knew  his  ordinary  one,  of 
being  in  the  liquor  he  was  never  out  of — and  was  just  on  the  point 
of  mere  mad  screaming  or  starting  to  run  God  knows  where,  when 
the  voice  of  Aunt  Stingy  came  from  her  bedroom  above,  also  with 
alarm  in  it.  "  Jim,  can't  you  hear,  you  fool  ?  Leave  him  to  him- 
self, I  tell  you.  He's  had  the  horrors."  Aunt  Stingy  seemed  to 
imply  that  the  horrors,  whatever  they  were,  would  subside  of  them- 
selves. 

Ill  has  a  fixed  point  in  the  minds  of  young  children — a  simple 
maximum  it  reaches  and  never  goes  beyond.  Lucky  for  them  that 
it  is  so !  For  a  step  further  would  kill.  Lizarann's  mind  could  be 
dragged  no  farther  along  the  road  of  terrors  that  leads  maturer 


150  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lives  to  self -slaughter  or  the  madhouse.  Or  it  may  be  some  pitying 
angel  wrapped  her  small  soul  in  a  merciful  stupefaction,  that  it 
might  live.  For  when  her  aunt's  voice  came  again,  peevish  and 
impatient,  but  without  sense  of  any  very  abnormal  conditions,  she 
was  able  to  answer,  "  Yass,  Aunt  Stingy,"  but  not  very  audibly. 

"  Why  can't  you  answer  when  I  speak  ?  I  tell  you,  let  him  bide. 
He's  best  to  himself,  and  he's  had  all  what  liquor  there  was.  .  .  . 
Can't  you  answer?  .  .  .  Fetchin'  me  down!  ..." 

The  child  understood  her  aunt's  context,  for  all  its  elisions.  To 
propitiate,  she  ran  upstairs.  A  descent  in  wrath,  portended  by  an 
exaggerated  foot-tramp,  was  averted  by  her  words :  "  D-daddy  ain't 
come  b-back — he  ain't !  " 

"  Why  couldn't  you  speak  ? — little  hussy !  You're  a  child  to  have 
in  a  house.  When's  he  coming  ? " 

"  He  ain't  coming!  Yass — he  ain't!  He's  took  to  the  doctor  on 
a  barrer.  Yass — he  is!"  And  Lizarann,  whose  small  hands,  cold 
and  blue,  are  all  tremor  and  visible  unrest  from  panic,  would  like 
to  run,  but  dares  not.  She  has  worded  her  awful  message,  though. 
That  is  something,  however  much  Aunt  Stingy  may  doubt  its 
truth. 

"  Who's  to  know  you  ain't  lying  ?  Who's  to  know  he  ain't  in  at 
the  Robin  Hood  ?  Now,  if  you're  story-tellin'  .  .  . ! "  A  bony 
warning  finger  should  have  been  enough  without  any  further  de- 
tails of  the  penalties  of  falsehood.  A  reference  to  a  flagellum  that 
had  once  been  inherent  in  a  discarded  pair  of  the  speaker's  stays — 
an  incredible  wooden  lathe — ought  to  have  been  quite  superfluous. 
But  Mrs.  Steptoe  had  had  great  trials,  to  excuse  her  short  temper. 

However,  nothing  can  alter  the  facts ;  and  Lizarann  can  only  re- 
peat her  statement.  Daddy  had  been  took  away  on  the  p'leece 
barrer,  with  curtings;  and  his  leg  was  hurt.  But  the  doctor  was 
at  the  Horspital.  This  was  felt,  and  offered,  as  a  palliative. 
Surely  it  deserved  better  recognition  than,  "  And  why  couldn't  the 
child  tell  me  all  this  before  ?  Keeping  me  standin'  here ! "  very 
wrathfully  fired  off  at  poor  Lizarann.  She  had  told  it,  and  at  the 
earliest  possible  moment.  What  could  she  do  more  ? 

Aunt  Stingy's  reception  of  the  story,  which  was  less  emotionne 
than  Lizarann  had  expected,  had  its  good  side.  Perhaps  the  pre- 
sumptuous boy's  description  of  the  powers  of  Hospitals  was  not 
all  fanciful,  and  her  aunt's  wider  experience  knew  that  in  a  short 
time  daddy  would  be  back  home  again;  not  only  well  and  sound, 
but  even  better  and  sounder.  Lizarann  extracted  consolation  from 
her  aunt's  half  callous  hearing  of  her  news,  without  closely 
analyzing  it.  Probably  Mrs.  Steptoe  would  have  been  more  sym- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  151 

pathetic  if  her  own  cup  of  bitterness,  like  her  small  niece's,  had 
not  been  full  to  the  brim  already.  But  sympathy  would  have  in- 
tensified Lizarann's  solicitude  about  her  father;  the  fact  that  the 
news  could  be  apathetically  received  by  anyone,  even  Aunt  Stingy, 
fortified  her.  It  may  even  be  that  she  was  braced  by  her  own 
keen  feeling  of  the  injustice  her  aunt  did  her  in  apparently  ascrib- 
ing her  father's  disaster  to  her,  when  really  she  was  only  the  in- 
nocent and  most  unwilling  bearer  of  the  news  of  it.  That,  how- 
ever, was  Mrs.  Steptoe's  attitude.  "  There's  a  many'd  'a  said  you 
didn't  deserve  no  supper,"  said  she,  and  claimed  a  weak  good- 
nature as  a  quality  of  her  own.  She  hustled  Lizarann  into  her 
father's  bedroom,  with  needless  collateral  pushes  in  wrong  direc- 
tions, and  the  admonition,  "  Don't  let  me  catch  you  in  the  parlour, 
or  you'll  know  of  it.  Starin'  round !  "  Her  truculence,  no  doubt, 
had  something  of  a  safety-valve  character,  and  she  may  have 
thought  that  the  youth  of  its  object  would  remain  ignorant  of  its 
full  stress,  while  she  herself  had  the  whole  advantage  of  the  relief 
it  gave.  But  really  the  child  understood  more  than  she  ascribed  to 
her,  and  felt  its  injustice,  tempered  by  the  broad  consideration  that 
it  was  only  Aunt  Stingy. 

Mere  ferocity  towards  children  is  bad  enough,  but  it  is  hardest 
to  bear  when  it  is  illogical.  Aunt  Stingy  was  inconsecutive  in  her 
grounds  of  indictment  against  Lizarann,  and  this  added  to  the 
sting  of  her  injustice.  No  child  would  have  been  readier  than 
she  to  see  to  her  own  supper,  and  hot  up  half  a  bloater  on  the  bit 
of  fire  that  had  looked  so  cheerful  in  the  front  room — though  she 
couldn't  above  half  see  it  for  TJncle  Bob  gettin'  in  the  way — or  to 
stoast  a  slice  of  bread  afore  the  bars  with  a  fair  allowance  of  but- 
ter on ;  or  to  do  what  she  dared  not  ask  her  aunt  to  do,  and  lie  the 
four  chestnuts,  which  she  still  treasured  mechanically  inside  her 
frock,  on  the  top  bar  where  it  was  flat,  to  get  the  heat  back  in  'em 
a  bit,  before  cracking  off  the  shell.  So  it  was  inconsistent  and  ab- 
surd in  her  aunt,  after  telling  her  to  keep  where  she  was  or  she 
would  let  her  know,  to  return  presently  with  all  the  supper  she 
would  get  to-night,  comin'  in  so  late,  and  to  add :  "  7  wasn't  waited 
on  when  I  was  a  little  girl.  Standin'  round,  expectin'  your  elders 
to  fetch  and  carry ! "  quite  ignoring  the  fact  that  she  herself  had 
paralyzed  her  niece's  activity  by  instructions  not  to  go  outside  of 
that  room  until  she  was  told  to  it.  And  equally  so  when,  without 
any  evidence  that  the  child  was  going  to  say  a  word,  she  added: 
"Now,  don't  you  answer  me,  for  that  I  cannot  abide;  but  just  you 
eat  your  supper  and  go  to  bed,  or  we  shall  have  you  ill  next."  Of 
aourse,  it  was  only  when  Jim  was  out  of  the  way  that  Mrs.  Steptoe 


152  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

allowed  the  shortness  of  her  temper  to  get  the  better  of  her  so 
completely,  and  on  this  occasion  everything  was  against  elasticity. 

Things  were  all  so  nightmare-like  that  nothing  could  well  make 
them  worse,  or  Lizarann  might  have  been  additionally  terrified  and 
oppressed  when  her  aunt,  before  consigning  her  supper  finally  to 
her  for  consumption,  looked  it  all  over  closely  and  said,  more  to 
herself  then  the  public :  "  /  don't  see  any  things  a-crawling."  As 
it  was,  in  the  Valley  of  Shadows  Life  was  passing  through  to- 
night, Lizarann  merely  said :  "  There  ain't  nuffint  on  the  stoast," 
and  began  her  supper  off  it  sadly.  Her  daddy's  great  effort  to 
speak  against  his  pain,  and  his  reassuring  words  about  the  doctor, 
had  made  that  cheerless  evening  meal  a  possibility  to  his  little  lass. 
Full  knowledge,  and  a  year  or  so  more  of  life,  would  have  meant 
inability  to  eat.  But  Lizarann  was  very  young,  and,  moreover, 
could  not  credit  a  possibility  of  mistake  to  her  daddy.  Had  he 
not  spoken  confidently  of  the  "  ship's  doctor  "  making  a  square  job 
of  his  leg?  She  had  certainly  a  slight  misgiving  that  this  pointed 
to  his  leg  assuming  a  different  shape  after  the  operation.  All  sorts 
of  contingencies  hung  about  Hospitals.  You  never  could  tell  what 
grown  people  wouldn't  be  at  next.  But  whatever  the  outcome  was, 
daddy  would  be  there.  And  this  black  cloud  would  roll  away. 

Aunt  Stingy  retired,  and  left  Lizarann  to  herself  and  her  sup- 
per with  a  final  imputation  of  rebelliousness  and  disobedience  that 
was  quite  groundless — so  its  object  thought.  "  You  do  like  I  tell 
you,  and  go  straight  to  bed  when  you've  e't  your  supper.  Burnin' 
the  candle-ends  for  nothing ! "  She  then  did  violence  to  the  un- 
derstanding, by  adding :  "  The  light  won't  last  you  out,  except  you 
look  sharp;  and  then  you'll  be  in  the  dark."  If  a  rigid  economy 
was  compulsory,  how  could  extravagance  be  possible?  But 
menace  without  method  was  Aunt  Stingy's  attitude  to-night. 

Lizarann,  left  alone,  looked  all  round  the  tray  and  under  the 
milk-jug,  but  could  see  nothing  crawling.  She  was  not  so  much 
concerned  with  the  avoiding  such  things  as  articles  of  diet  as  a 
County  Family  would  have  been,  or  even  the  Upper  Middle  Class ; 
her  object  was  to  throw  light  on  her  aunt's  soliloquy,  which  she 
had  not  ventured  to  ask  the  meaning  of.  Getting  no  light,  she  ate 
the  scrop  o'  bloater,  and  the  stoast  and  butter,  and  drank  the  milk, 
and  did  very  well,  for  her  aunt  was  not  christened  Stingy  from 
any  tendency  to  cut  down  rations  unduly.  Only  she  would  have 
done  better  still,  had  she  been  able  to  sob  less,  and  if  the  re- 
sources of  a  pocket-handkerchief  ten  inches  square  had  not  required 
supplementing  by  sleeves,  which  can  only  be  crudely  engineered 
against  tear-drops,  or  their  reincarnations.  But  she  got  through 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  153 

her  supper  before  ever  the  candle  set  alight  to  the  paper,  and 
flared.  Then  she  got  to  bed  before  the  flare  became  convulsive ;  not 
to  be  left  in  the  dark  with — who  knows? — a  nightgowned  sleeve 
inside  out  and  no  finding  where.  Because  we  all  feel  that  spectres 
are  not  to  be  trusted,  unless  you  have  something  on.  Indeed,  timid 
persons  are  not  happy  till  the  whole  thickness  of  the  bedclothes  is 
between  them  and  possibly  convincing  phenomena. 

The  candle  died  hard.  But  Lizarann  knew  that  the  longer  it 
took,  the  less  it  would  taint  the  atmosphere  after  its  last  convul- 
sion, and  left  it  to  smoke  in  peace.  So  she  watched  it  from  her 
bed  that  stood  in  what  was  little  more  than  a  cupboard  off  the  room 
her  father  slept  in,  and  cried  to  think  that  his  was  empty.  She 
watched,  and  wondered  which  would  come  first,  the  last  flicker,  or 
her  last  mouthful  of  chestnut.  For  she  ate  those  chestnuts  cold, 
and  shoved  the  shells  well  under  the  bolster  so  Aunt  Stingy 
shouldn't  see.  She  was  a  very  human  little  girl,  was  Lizarann, 
for  all  she  was  so  devoted  to  her  daddy. 

The  candle  outlived  the  last  chestnut.  Then  consideration  had 
to  be  given  to  the  problem  how  to  get  to  sleep  afore  the  nasty  smell 
come  along  the  ceiling  and  down.  Once  asleep,  you  can  ignore 
smells,  even  when  sut.  Sut  is  the  worst,  but  candlegutter  has  a 
nasty  flaviour  with  it.  So  Lizarann  did  wisely  to  go  to  sleep  vig- 
orously. 

She  was  succeeding,  and  beginning  to  dream  a  nice  dream, 
though  she  wasn't  getting  warm  yet,  when  her  aunt  made  a  tem- 
persome  re-entry  on  the  scene.  Lizarann  woke  with  a  start,  and, 
remembering  all  the  dreadful  reality,  broke  out  crying — she 
couldn't  help  it!  Shaken  by  one  arm,  and  told  to  wake  up  and 
have  done  with  that  petering  noise,  she  recovered  self-possession, 
except  for  a  lagging  sob  at  intervals,  and  sat  up.  Directed,  incon- 
secutively,  to  lie  down  and  go  to  sleep  again,  and  no  more  nonsense, 
she  was  preparing  to  comply  when  her  aunt  gave  a  first  beginning 
of  a  screech  and  stopped  it  short. 

"Whatever  is  it?  .   .    .     O  Lard!  .    .    ." 

"  It's  a  ch-chestnut  sell.  I  eated  it."  Confession  proved  good 
policy  in  this  case,  averting  inquiry  which  would  have  revealed 
the  hidden  store  under  the  bolster. 

"  O  Lard,  what  a  turn  it  gave  me !  .  .  .  he's  made  me  as  bad 
as  himself.  ..."  The  woman  had  a  frantic  look  about  her ;  her 
husband's  horrors  evidently  had  a  sort  of  infection  for  her; 
though  of  course  the  child  had  little  insight  into  this.  "  You  bad 
child,  you!  You  little  good-for-nothing  slut,  lyin'  in  bed  eating 
chestnuts,  and  your  father  in  the  Hospital  1" 


154  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

This  wounded  Lizarann  to  the  quick,  and  righteous  indignation 
overcame  both  grief  and  fear.  "  I  ain't"  she  shouted,  and  for  the 
moment  quite  forgot  that  she  was,  or  at  least  had  been,  the  mo- 
ment before. 

"  Don't  you  tell  me  that,  you  ontruthf ul  child,  and  your  leavings 
staring  you  in  the  face!  Now  just  you  tell  no  more  stories,  but 
say  where  they've  took  your  father,  and  what  he's  done  to  him- 
self." 

This  retrospective  use  of  a  conviction  for  untruth — and  a 
morally  unjust  one — to  suggest  a  course  of  antecedent  misrepre- 
sentation on  her  part,  seemed  to  Lizarann  quite  the  worst  piece  of 
mendacity  within  her  experience.  But  it  got  the  conversation  still 
further  away  from  that  nutshell  deposit;  and  that  was  good,  so  far. 
"  Father  said  he'd  be  took  proper  care  on,  and  I  w-wasn't  to  c-cry, 
and  I  shan't!" 

"  Can't  you  tell  me  where  they've  took  your  father  to,  instead 
of  vexin'  me  ?  Is  he  gone  to  the  Station,  or  the  Hospital  ? " 

"  The  Spoleece,  they  carried  him  off  to  the  Sospital.  Yass ! " 
Then,  sitting  up  in  bed,  a  small  monument  of  woe,  for  the  mo- 
ment tearless,  Lizarann  considered  whether  she  had  grounds  for 
deciding  which  Hospital.  She  knew  of  three,  the  Smallporks, 
Guys's,  and  Bartholomew's,  but  she  was  very  uncertain  about  the 
two  last.  She  decided  on  denying  the  Smallporks,  if  asked.  How- 
ever, her  aunt  accepted  the  Hospital  as  sufficient.  Let  it  go  at 
that! 

"  What  did  your  daddy  say  he'd  done  to  his  leg  ?  Now,  no 
makin'  up!  Say  the  truth,  like  he  told  you."  This  would  have 
been  a  signal  to  many  children  to  strain  hard  to  invent  the  truth 
out  of  their  own  b°ads.  Goaded  by  stupid,  unsympathetic  peo- 
ple, they  do  this  in  self-defence.  But  Lizarann  was  honourable 
and  clear-headed. 

"  He  only  saided  his  leg — didn't  say  nuffint  about  it.  Only  the 
sip's  doctor  would  make  a  square  job  of  it.  Yass ! " 

"  And  what  good's  your  schoolin'  done  you  ?  Couldn't  you  have 
the  sense  to  ask  and  find?  What  ever  do  you  suppose  God  gave 
you  your  tongue  for? — to  set  with  your  mouth  wide  open?  Little 
plagues  can  talk  fast  enough  when  they  ain't  wanted  to  it ! "  She 
then  suggested,  most  unfairly,  that  Lizarann  was  detaining  her  by 
holding  out  false  hopes  of  information.  "7  should  like  to  know 
how  long  you  expect  me  to  stand  here  askin'  questions.  This  time 
o'  night!  And  me  wanted  to  look  after  your  uncle!  Get  down 
into  your  bed  and  ha'  done  with  it !  I  can't  waste  my  time  talkin' 
to  you."  After  which  she  departed  and  locked  the  door;  Lizarann 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  155 

could  not  imagine  why.  But  there  was  something  very  queer  with 
Uncle  Bob,  who  had  been  audible  all  the  time  in  fitful  outbreaks, 
conveying  a  sense  of  his  adjective  applied  as  a  stigma  to  many 
things,  and  as  a  refreshing  emphasis  to  parts  of  speech. 

Lizarann's  last  impression — a  hazy  one,  before  deep  sleep  came, 
and  total  oblivion — was  that  her  aunt  went  out  from  the  house, 
leaving  the  street  door  on  the  jar,  and  that  then  she  heard  the  voice 
of  their  neighbour  Mrs.  Hacker,  saying,  "  He'll  be  all  right  by 
morning." 

Now  this  little  maiden  attached  only  two  ideas  to  this  husband  of 
her  aunt :  one,  that  he  was  a  painful  concomitant  of  all  their  lives, 
who  had  to  be  put  up  with,  and  where  was  the  use  of  complainin'  ? 
— the  other  that  he  was  the  victim  of  a  liver-disorder  known  as 
"the  boil."  His  absorption  of  gin  was  part  of  himself;  a  practice 
as  much  identified  with  him  as  any  inherent  quality  or  fixed  condi- 
tion ;  perhaps  the  celibacy  of  a  priesthood  presents  a  sort  of  parallel 
case.  So  all  new  and  strange  developments  in  Uncle  Bob  were 
credited  to  this  disorder,  and  when  Mrs.  Hacker  from  over  the 
way  said  the  patient  would  be  all  right  by  morning,  the  only  sug- 
gestion to  Lizarann's  drowsy  mind  was  that  there  was  a  bottle  of 
doctor's  stuff  never  been  took,  and  that  it  had  just  come  in  handy. 
For — but  perhaps  you  know  this? — the  masses,  par  excellence,  ac- 
count all  drugs  good  for  all  diseases,  if  took  reg'lar.  The  classes, 
prone  to  affectation,  get  prescriptions  made  up  each  time. 

So  the  child  was  soon  sound  asleep  and  happy. 

But  the  cobbler's  disorder  was  the  first  beginning  of  the  end  of 
a  long  devotion  to  gin,  and,  to  speak  scientifically — always  do  so 
when  you  can! — he  was  in  a  very  advanced  condition  of  Alcohol- 
ism. But  he  was  very  unlike  the  priest,  who,  in  the  most  advanced 
conditions  of  celibacy,  passes  his  life — poor  fellow! — in  secret 
longing  for  the  remedy.  For  Mr.  Steptoe  hugged  his  Alcoholism, 
caressed  it,  and  fed  it  constantly  with  new  supplies  of  raw  gin. 
His  affection  for  the  cause  of  his  disease  was  self-supporting,  and 
he  longed  for  small  goes  of  it  as  keenly  as  the  priest  longs  for  the 
proper  antidotes  of  his — for  Home  and  Love. 

When  Aunt  Stingy  took  such  pains  to  lock  her  niece  into  the 
bedroom  she  might  just  as  well  have  locked  her  husband  into  the 
front  parlour.  But  she  was  deceived  by  appearances.  For  it  was 
just — only  just — untrue  that  he  had  had  all  the  liquor  there  was. 
There  was  a  short  half-glass  in  the  bottom  of  an  unnoticed  bottle, 
put  by  to  be  took  back,  and  a  penny  on  it.  On  this  Steptoe  greedily 
pounced,  during  his  wife's  first  interview  with  the  child  in  the  next 


156  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

room.  It  produced  that  momentary  flash  that  is  so  misleading  in 
these  cases,  when  actual  improvement  seems  to  follow  a  new  stim- 
ulus. Often  the  trembling  hand  and  idiot  brain  resume  skill  and 
coherency,  for  the  moment,  only  to  fall  still  lower  at  the  next  re- 
action. The  woman  felt  secure  in  her  husband's  assurance  that  he 
was  a  blooming  sight  better,  and  that  he  couldn't  tell  what  the  de- 
scribed Hell  had  been  the  described  matter  with  him.  He  prom- 
ised to  come  to  bed  as  soon  as  the  fire  giv'  out;  and  she  left  him, 
free  from  the  horrors  for  the  time  being,  standing  with  his  back 
agin'  the  mantelshelf,  collecting  the  last  heat  with  a  view  to  sitting 
on  it — the  heat,  not  the  mantleshelf — while  he  finished  through  his 
pipe. 

She  ought  not  to  have  done  it.  Or  she  ought  to  have  took  the 
key  out  of  the  outside  of  the  bedroom  door,  or  hid  it  anywheres 
handy — where  he  would  never  have  looked  for  it,  Law  bless  you! 
Instead,  she  went  to  bed  herself,  and  probably  fell  asleep  as  soon 
as  a  sense  of  her  husband  moving,  downstairs,  seemed  to  warrant 
a  belief  that  he  was  going  to  keep  his  word.  She  slept  sound,  and 
it  may  have  been  two  hours  past  midnight  when  she  was  waked  by 
a  movement  below,  and  found  that  her  husband  had  never  come 
to  bed;  was  still  smoking,  probably.  But  this  was  not  her  first 
thought  as,  having  lighted  her  candle,  she  sat  up  in  bed,  noting  the 
sounds  that  followed.  Her  spoken  reflection  was:  "If  that's 
Lizarann  prancing  about,  I'll  let  her  know  to-morrow."  Then  she 
remembered  the  key,  and  couldn't  understand  the  position.  And 
then  took  advantage  of  a  silence  to  decide  that  it  wasn't  anything. 
When  an  "  anything  "  may  involve  our  having  to  get  out  of  bed  in 
the  cold,  we  are  apt  to  decide  on  its  non-existence.  She  blew  out 
the  candle  and  lay  down  again. 

This  is  not  a  medical  work,  and  it  is  no  part  of  its  business  to 
locate  exactly  the  case  of  Robert  Steptoe  in  medical  records.  The 
discrimination  of  the  symptoms  of  delirium  tremens  proper,  and 
their  points  of  difference  from  those  of  ordinary  delirium — nervous 
or  feverish — are  matters  of  great  interest,  especially  in  their  rela- 
tion to  treatment,  but  they  belong  elsewhere.  Our  function  is  lim- 
ited to  recording  the  symptoms  of  the  case  as  they  have  been 
brought  to  our  knowledge;  and  we  must  hope  that  our  medical 
readers  will  allow  a  certain  latitude  to  the  description  of  the  only 
instance  of  the  malady  that  has  come  within  its  writer's  experience. 
Some  of  it  is  necessarily  conjectural,  but  nothing  would  be  gained 
by  a  laborious  effort  to  separate  these  portions  from  the  certainties. 
For  instance,  the  patient's  hours  in  the  room  alone,  after  his  wife 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  157 

left  him,  must  be  matter  of  surmise.     But  surmise  to  the  following 
effect  appears  well  grounded. 

So  long  as  the  effect  continued  of  the  small  dose  of  stimulant  he 
had  discovered,  he  remained  sane  and  free  from  immediate  delu- 
sion, and  had  no  other  intentions  than  to  smoke  through  his  pipe 
and  follow  his  wife  to  bed,  as  promised.  But  after  he  had  finished 
it,  and  knocked  the  ashes  out — they  were  found  on  the  hob,  and  the 
pipe  stuck  in  the  looking-glass  frame,  when  the  ground  was  gone 
over  afterwards — his  attention  was  arrested  by  something  crawling 
over  the  table.  He  had  seen  one  before  (as  appears  by  our  narra- 
tive), in  fact,  he  had  seen  several,  causing  a  sympathetic  horror  in 
Aunt  Stingy.  He  tried  to  destroy  this  one,  but  nothing  came  of 
the  attempt.  Putting  a  volume  on  it  and  crushing  it  down  only 
caused  it  to  come  through  the  book  and  crawl  over  it.  He  tried 
this  frequently,  wondering  at  the  result,  but  not  specially  alarmed 
— more  amused  perhaps  in  a  kind  of  vacuous  way — until  he  saw 
another,  and  then  another.  The  place  was  all  over  them,  and  he 
called  them  names — some  very  inappropriate — and  qualified  them 
all  with  his  favourite  adjective.  In  themselves  they  really  did  not 
matter.  But  most  unfortunately  the  fact  that  they  were  all  going 
in  the  same  direction  showed  him  that  they  were  emanations  from  a 
man  of  the  name  of  Preedy,  a  leather-seller,  of  whom  he  used  to 
purchase  ready-closed  uppers  and  cuttings.  It  was  shrewd  of  him, 
he  thought,  to  identify  Preedy  as  their  original  source  by  the 
steady  way  in  which  they  all  kept  going  in  one  direction.  And 
still  shrewder  to  infer  that  it  was  all  part  of  a  scheme  to  oust  him 
from  the  sort  of  little  kennel  or  box  in  which  he  carried  on  his  trade 
in  a  street  half  a  mile  off.  It  was  left  locked  at  night ;  but,  seen  by 
the  light  of  these  vermin,  and  a  buzzing  noise  that  accompanied 
them,  what  was  to  prevent  Preedy  getting  possession  of  it  and 
bribing  the  police  on  duty  to  support  him  in  his  usurpation?  He 
sat  down  for  a  minute  or  two  longer  to  think  this  out.  The  room 
was  always  well  lighted,  because  the  street  gas-lamp,  just  outside, 
always  showed  through  the  clear  space  above  the  shutter. 

Reflection  did  not  even  suggest  that  it  might  be  a  mistake  about 
Mr.  Preedy.  If  it  had,  his  condition  would  not  have  been  delirious. 
On  the  contrary,  it  all  became  clearer  to  him  than  ever.  If  it  were 
not  true,  how  came  he  to  have  read  half-an-hour  since  full  par- 
ticulars of  it  under  the  heading  "Late  Entries"  in  the  sporting 
journal  that  was  still  lying  on  the  table?  He  could  find  it  again 
in  a  minute,  only  it  was  so  dark.  He  had  a  match  and  lit  it,  to 
read  by;  but  his  hand  shook  so — always  along  of  that  (described) 
Preedy — that  he  couldn't  master  the  (described)  small  type.  And 


158  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

his  wife  had  got  the  candle  away.  Just  like  her! — she  done  it 
a-purpose.  But  he  knew  there  was  a  candle  in  Jim's  bedroom,  next 
door. 

The  noise  he  made  fumbling  at  the  door,  which  was  of  course 
locked,  waked  Lizarann,  who,  having  fallen  asleep  on  the  fact  that 
her  aunt  had  locked  her  in,  knew  that  fact  and  no  other  as  her 
senses  returned.  She  calle'd  drowsily,  "You  locked  the  key  that 
side,"  conceiving  the  disturber  to  be  her  aunt.  Contrary  to  what 
might  have  been  expected,  her  uncle  understood  clearly,  and  opened 
the  door.  But  the  reason  he  felt  no  surprise  at  the  key  having  been 
turned  outside  was  one  of  the  indescribables  of  delirium.  It  was, 
somehow,  because  Lizarann  answered  instead  of  Jim.  Of  course — 
so  it  seemed  to  him — if  Jim  had  answered,  it  would  have  been  in- 
side. You  think  that  too  strange?  Try  delirium,  and  see! 

His  wife  had  had  nothing  to  gain  by  telling  him  of  Jim's  ac- 
cident, and  his  faculties  had  not  been  at  observation-point.  Or, 
perhaps,  he  might  be  said  to  have  forgotten  that  he  had  never 
known  that  Jim  didn't  come  in  to  supper.  Anyway,  he  accepted 
Jim  as  having  gone  to  bed,  and  made  a  sort  of  apology  for  disturb- 
ing him. 

"  Ashkpardon  mashcandlestick,"  said  he,  in  two  husky  words,  con- 
sisting of  matter  thrown  loosely  together,  and  added,  as  a  single 
thought  that  might  help,  "  Looshfermash."  He  had  no  idea  about 
time — thought  his  wife  had  left  him  a  few  minutes  since. 

Lizarann  was  not  frightened.  She  did  not  understand  that 
Uncle  Bob  imagined  her  daddy  was  in  his  bed  as  usual;  and 
there  was  nothing  unusual  in  his  coming  to  look  for  a  lucifer- 
match.  She  called  out  to  him  without  moving :  "  On  the  mankle- 
shelf,  Uncle  Bob."  But  she  was  only  half  awake.  She  dimly 
heard  him  feeling  about  the  room  for  the  candlestick,  and  mutter- 
ing to  himself.  Sporadic  examples  of  his  favourite  adjective  made 
outcrops  in  his  monologue,  becoming  more  and  more  frequent  as  he 
failed  to  discover  the  object  of  his  search.  Still,  Lizarann  thought 
herself  at  liberty  to  remain  half-asleep,  if  she  chose. 

Not  being  sure  how  far  she  had  done  so — she  might,  indeed,  have 
been  wholly  asleep  without  knowing  it — she  could  not  have  said  how 
long  this  continued.  She  was  roused  in  the  end  by  the  delirious 
man  suddenly  exclaiming,  in  a  voice  of  terror  that  filled  her,  too, 
with  terror :  "  My  Goard,  then,  he  has  only  one !  "  He  then  broke 
out  in  incoherent  fear :  u  You  keep  him  off  of  me,  master — you  keep 
him  off.  Or  I  tell  yer,  I'll  brind  him — I  will!"  At  which  Lizar- 
ann's  heart  stopped.  Not  from  anything  in  the  words,  which  were 
of  the  sort  that  she  would  have  told  Bridgetticks  were  "  only  Uncle 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  159 

Bob."  Uncle  Bob  occurred  too  frequently  in  daily  life  for  her  to 
fret  much  about  his  language.  The  cold  shiver  had  run  down  her 
back,  this  time,  because  she  knew  there  was  no  one  in  the  room  with 
him.  But,  may  she  not  have  known  falsely?  Surely  there  was 
someone  else  there,  that  he  was  speaking  to.  Listen! 

"  Good  job  you  come  in,  master !  You're  a  good  chap,  you  are. 
You're  Bonyparty,  I  take  it,  in  the  picter-book.  You  larn  him  to 
keep  his  distance,  and  I'm  your  friend.  Won't  you  take  nothing? 
Just  a  drain?  ..."  He  wandered  on,  with  a  thickness  of  speech 
that,  if  spelt  ever  so  successfully,  would  only  encumber  the  text. 

Uncle  Bob  had  gone  mad,  clearly,  and  would  get  himself  took 
to  the  Asylum,  where  Bridgetticks's  Aunt  Tabither  was.  Bridget 
was  very  proud  of  this  aunt.  And  though  there  might,  as  in  her 
case,  be  advantages  in  the  end,  the  present  had  to  be  faced.  And 
poor  Lizarann  was  the  only  soul  that  knew  anything  about  it,  and 
was  stiff  with  terror  in  bed,  in  the  dark,  with  a  speechless  tongue, 
but  a  calm  interior  spot  somewhere,  that  was  wondering  when  she 
would  begin  to  cry  out  in  her  agony  of  fear,  yet  knew  that  daddy 
wasn't  there  to  cry  to. 

In  a  few  moments  she  was  aware  that  the  breath  of  the  delirious 
man  was  catching  again,  as  in  terror,  and  his  voice  followed :  "  He 
ain't  gone — he  ain't  gone!  Don't  you  pay  no  attention  to  'em, 
master!  I  can  see  his  eye  under  the  bed,  spinning  round  like  a 
wheel.  If  there'd  a  been  two  of  'em  now.  ..."  Then  in  a  sud- 
den extremity  of  terror  his  voice  was  worse  than  if  it  had  been  a 
scream ;  he  forced  it  from  his  lungs  in  a  strained  whisper.  "  My 
Goard! — he's  a-coming.  He's  a-coming  on.  He'll  get  me  afore 
he's  done,  he  will.  .  .  .  Leave  hold  of  me!  Leave  hold, 
you  ..."  We  have  to  stop  short. 

Lizarann's  impression  was  that  he  then  struck  out  to  protect 
himself  against  his  imaginary  aggressor.  He  certainly  fell,  and 
was  stunned.  The  child  grasped  this,  and  the  fact  that  he  was 
now  harmless  for  the  moment.  But  she  was  so  dumbstricken  that 
it  was  perhaps  the  whole  of  three  or  four  minutes  before  she  could 
find  her  voice,  and  then  only  for  inarticulate  hysterical  screams. 

The  fall  of  Steptoe  on  the  floor  was  the  sound  that  waked  his 
wife  in  the  room  above.  The  silence  that  followed  was  almost  long 
enough  to  convince  her  of  the  safety  of  going  to  sleep  again.  But 
Lizarann's  cries  of  heartfelt  terror  and  entire  panic  came  to  stop 
that.  The  woman  jumped  up  and  lit  her  candle,  whose  wick  had 
smouldered  to  the  grease  the  last  time  it  was  blown  out ;  it  had  to 
be  coaxed,  and  a  libation  of  melted  paraffin  had  to  be  poured  off  it 
before  it  would  flare  up  steady-like,  so  you  could  carry  it  and  not 


1GO 

spill.  It  taxed  Mrs.  Steptoe's  nerves  to  negotiate  all  this,  with  that 
tryin'  child  making  that  noise  downstairs.  But  it  was  either  that  or 
go  down  in  the  dark.  We  borrow  her  own  phraseology.  Besides, 
Lizarann  had  had  nightmare  and  woke  everybody,  that  time  Jim 
gave  Bob  such  a  reminding  three  months  ago.  So  her  aunt  made 
her  light  secure  before  going  below. 

Her  expectation  was  to  find  her  husband  in  a  stupid  drunken 
sleep  in  the  front  parlour,  and  the  door  of  the  back  room  closed 
as  she  had  left  it.  She  saw  the  open  door  and  quickened  her 
pace. 

"What's  that  child  been  after  outside  of  the  room?  Til  soon 
know  about  that.  ..."  She  soon  knew  all  that  could  be  known 
at  the  moment — that  her  husband,  whom  she  nearly  tumbled  over, 
was  insensible  on  the  ground — or  half-insensible,  muttering — and 
that  Lizarann  was  vociferous  with  terror  in  bed,  and  quite  in- 
capable, so  far,  of  telling  anything.  Her  first  instinct  was  fault- 
finding, as  against  the  child  for  screaming.  "  Stop  your  noise  or 
I'll  make  you  .  .  .  Lizarann!  ...  do  you  hear?  .  .  .  Will 
you  stop  ? "  And  then  in  a  voice  of  vengeful  resolution :  "  I'll  be  in 
after  you  directly."  Whereupon  Lizarann  choked  her  screams  back 
and  waited. 

Her  aunt  was  examining  Uncle  Bob  for  bruises,  so  she  thought; 
and  he  appeared  to  be  resenting  the  inquiry.  Suddenly  he  recov- 
ered his  articulation  in  a  wonderful  way,  and  became  quite  un- 
reasonably angry. 

"  You'll  keep  your  hands  off  me,  or  I'll  smack  your  chops  for 
you."  He  gathered  himself  up  and  got  on  his  legs,  but  swayed  a 
little  as  he  stood.  "  What's  that  you're  a-sayin'  ?  Why  the  (de- 
scribed) Hell  can't  you  speak  up?  Your  tongue's  fast  enough 
when  nobody's  asked  you  for  it.  Look  you  here,  Pry-scilla  Coup- 
land,  I  ain't  going  to  be  minced  about  no  more,  for  nobody."  Lizar- 
ann knew  from  his  calling  his  wife  by  her  maiden  name  that  her 
uncle's  state  was  a  dangerous  one.  He  did  it  whenever  he  became 
savage  with  drink.  What  followed  was  no  improvement.  "  Ah ! — 
you  may  go  and  tell  Jim  if  you  like.  He's  in  it,  like  the  rest  on 
'em.  I  know  all  about  their  planning  and  scheming.  I'll  make 
my  affidavit  afore  a  lawyer.  First  thing  to-morrow  morning,  and 
make  an  end  of  it  all.  I  will!"  His  manner  had  such  serious 
conviction  in  it  that  the  child  thought  him  sane  for  a  moment.  It 
was  something  grown-up  that  she  didn't  know  about.  Her  aunt's 
reply,  with  an  uneasy  half-laugh  in  it,  was  an  attempt  to  soothe 
and  conciliate.  "Whatever  are  you  fancyin',  Robert?"  she  said 
nervously.  "  Who's  planning  or  scheming  ?  Just  you  come  up  to 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  161 

bed,  and  be  done  with  your  talk-talk-talk.  Affidavits  and  lawyers! 
Where  shall  we  be  next  ?  " 

"  Don't  you  think  to  take  me  in ! "  His  reply  was  in  manner 
perfectly  sane  and  coherent — that  of  a  shrewd  man  of  business,  who 
sees  through  a  clever  imposture,  being  himself  cleverer  still. 
"  Don't  you  think  to  take  me  in !  I  wasn't  born  last  Sunday 
mornin'.  Now  look  'ee  here,  Pry-scilla  Coupland !  Shall  I  tell  yer 
something  I  know?  Shall  I  tell  yer  a  little  thing  I  know?  A  lit- 
tle— little  thing  ? "  This  was  said  as  a  question  of  superhuman 
slyness,  as  he  pointed  an  intuitive  finger  to  emphasize  it  and 
waited.  Then,  quite  suddenly,  he  became  ferocious.  "  What  the 
Hell,  do  you  think  I  don't  know?  Do  you  think  I  don't  know  that 
it's  you  that's  in  behind  it  all?  Ah! — you  and  Jim.  One  as  like 
as  t'other.  It's  a  bloody  conspiracy,  I  tell  yer.  And  I'll  make  yer 
pay  for  it.  I'll  make  yer  pay."  Still,  Lizarann  was  impressed 
that  he  was  speaking  of  something  real,  as  there  is  nothing  per  se 
insane  in  an  idea  of  a  conspiracy,  however  groundless. 

But  when  he  next  spoke,  she  saw  that  he  was  really  mad.  For 
her  aunt,  perceiving  that  her  attempt  at  a  soothing  tone  had  only 
made  matters  worse,  tried  a  little  intimidation.  "  You  wouldn't 
kerry  on  like  that,  Robert,  exceptin'  you  knew  Jim  wasn't  here. 
But  he's  a-coming,  and  I  tell  it  you,  for  you  to  know.  So  just  you 
bear  it  in  mind — there !  " 

"  Jim's  over  there.     I  seen  him."    He  pointed  to  the  bed. 

"  Talking  silly,  you  are !  His  bed's  empty,  anyhow !  But  he's 
a-coming — that  I  tell  you,  plain.  Now  you  come  along  upstairs." 

"  Aha ! — right  you  are,  Mrs.  Hess."  This  was  the  initial  of 
Steptoe.  He  went  on  with  a  sly  triumphant  wrinkling  of  his  face, 
that  mixed  oddly  with  the  tremor  of  eye  and  lip  that  is  part  of 
this  disease.  "  No,  he  ain't  in  that  bed.  But  I  can  tell  yer  where 
he  is — he's  under  it!  That's  where  Jim  is.  I  seen  his  eye,  plain 
to  see!  .  .  ." 

"Jim's  eye,  ye  silly!  Come  to  bed,  and  sleep  your  drink  off. 
Ye  born  fool !  Jim's  eye ! " 

"  Ah ! — Jim's  eye.  The  one  he  opens  at  night.  He's  under- 
'anded  and  sly — sees  a  rare  lot  more  than  he'll  put  a  name  to! 
Why,  I  seen  it,  God  damn  you !  " — with  a  sudden  revival  of  ferocity 
— "  I  seen  it,  I  tell  you,  there  under  that  there  bed." 

Then  Lizarann  knew  that  he  was  mad.  Of  course,  she  knew 
nothing  of  delirium  tremens,  but  she  knew  quite  well  the  state 
often  described  as  "mad  drunk,"  and  that  her  uncle  when  so  af- 
fected always  became  violent ;  although  since  that  occurrence  three 
months  since,  fear  of  Jim  had  been  a  wholesome  check.  Oh,  if 


162  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Daddy  were  only  here! — so  thought  Lizarann,  as  she  stood  in  the 
doorway  with  her  teeth  chattering,  and  literally  sick  with  terror. 

"  I  tell  you  I  seen  it,  and  I'll  tell  you  some  more.  Only  just  you 
stand  still.  I'm  a  going  for  to  cut  it  out,  by  Goard!  Only  you 
wait  till  I  get  my  *  *  *  knife.  .  .  .  It's  round  the  *  *  *  cor- 
ner against  the  window.  ..."  These  were  the  last  articulate 
words  Lizarann  heard,  as  her  aunt  followed  their  speaker  into  the 
front  room.  Then  the  voices  of  both  in  confusion — his  raving,  hers 
concealing  apprehension  badly  under  an  attempt  at  command. 
This  for  a  while;  then  a  rapid  crescendo  of  terror  ending  in  a 
shriek,  and  an  appeal  to  Heaven-knows-who  to  get  the  Police.  And 
Lizarann — not  seven  yet ! — had  to  make  up  her  mind  what  to  do. 


CHAPTER 

HOW  THE  RECTOR  OP  ROYD  TOOK  A  WRONG  TURNING,  AND  PICKED  UP 
LIZARANN  IN  THE  SNOW.  MR.  STEPTOE's  KNIFE,  AND  HOW 
LIZARANN  MADE  HIM  LEAVE  HOLD  OP  IT.  HOW  AUNTIE  STINGY  WAS 
HANDY  IN  CASE  OP  ANYTHING,  AND  UNCLE  BOB  WENT  TO  SLEEP 
ON  A  SECOND-HAND  SOFA 

WHEN  the  Rev.  Augustus  Fossett,  the  brother  of  Lizarann's 
schoolmistress,  and  incumbent  of  St.  Vulgate's  Church,  Clapham 
Rise,  got  hemoptysis,  his  friends  tried  to  persuade  him  to  throw 
up  his  appointment  and  go  away  to  Australia  or  South  Africa. 
His  brother  Jack  wanted  him  to  chuck  the  Church,  and  take  to 
some  healthy  employment — the  young  man's  expressions,  not  ours — 
and  took  the  opportunity  to  generalize  overmuch,  on  the  subject 
of  the  causes  of  death  among  the  Clergy.  He  said  that  something 
he  referred  to  merely  as  "  it "  was  "  all  very  fine,  but  two-thirds 
of  them  died  of  consumption."  He  was  devoted  to  his  brother,  and 
wanted  badly  to  get  Gus  clear  of  that  filthy  slum,  with  its  horrible 
rows  of  little  houses  that  had  two  or  three  families  in  them  before 
the  mortar  was  dry.  But  Gus  refused  to  comply  with  his  fam- 
ily's wishes.  "I  know  Jack  thinks,"  said  he,  "that  if  he  could 
only  get  me  into  a  lawyer's  wig,  or  a  sailor's  trousers,  I  shouldn't 
have  an  apex  to  my  right  lung,  practically.  And  moist  sibilant 
rales  would  be  things  unheard  of."  He  added  that  he  wasn't  mar- 
ried, and  never  meant  to  be ;  that  the  neighbourhood  was  healthy,  if 
it  was  a  little  damp ;  and  that  all  he  wanted  was  change  of  air  now 
and  again.  Taylor  would  come  and  take  his  duties  for  a  week  or 
so,  and  he  would  go  to  Royd,  and  Bessie  Caldecott  would  nurse 
him  up,  at  the  Rectory. 

For  the  Rector  of  Royd,  whose  acquaintance  the  story  has 
already  made,  was,  in  his  relation  to  the  Rev.  Gus,  the  other  half 
of  one  of  those  friendships  that,  according  to  Tennyson,  have 
mastered  time.  So  every  now  and  again,  as  occasion  arose,  the 
Rev.  Athelstan's  broad  chest  and  shoulders  loomed  large  in  the  pul- 
pit of  St.  Vulgate's,  and  his  voice  sounded  altogether  too  big  for 
the  architectural  treatment  of  the  east  window. 

About  six  weeks  before  the  story-time  of  last  chapter,  the  rev- 
erend gentleman  had  said  to  his  sister-in-law :  "  Bess,  I  can't  have 

163 


164  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Gus  kill  himself  this  winter.  He'll  do  it  in  the  end,  but  let's  keep 
him  here  as  long  as  we  can.  I'll  go  and  see  to  his  parishioners  in 
January,  and  he  must  come  here.  You  mustn't  let  him  work  hard, 
and  give  him  no  end  of  cream  and  new-laid  new-laid  eggs.  I  can 
get  Tom  Cowper  to  do  his  work  in  February,  and  then  I'll  come 
back  and  take  him  for  walks.  Ah  dear !  "  The  Rector's  anxiety 
about  his  friend  got  to  the  surface,  through  his  tone  of  serene  con- 
fidence, which  was  factitious. 

"  What  are  we  to  do  about  Phoebe  and  Joan  ?  "  said  Miss  Caldecott. 

"  Isn't  it  very  likely  all  nonsense  about  infection  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know."  Then  both  looked  perplexed ;  and  that,  as  we 
all  know,  doesn't  do  any  good. 

"  There's  plenty  of  places  for  them  to  go  to  .  .  ."  said  the 
Rector;  but  didn't  say  where. 

"  But  they'll  be  so  heart-broken,"  said  Miss  Caldecott,  "  if  they 
are  away  when  their  uncle's  here."  For  Mr.  Fossett  had  always 
held  rank  as  a  "  putative  "  uncle  to  Phoebe  and  Joan,  with  natural 
confusion  in  their  minds  as  a  result. 

"We  must  think  it  out  somehow,"  said  the  Rector.  "Their 
potatoe  uncle !  Ah  dear !  " 

It  must  have  been  thought  out  somehow,  without  danger  of  in- 
fection to  Phoebe  and  Joan ;  for  January  saw  Augustus  shepherding 
the  flock  of  Athelstan,  and  Athelstan  heavily  afflicted  with  the  pop- 
ulation of  a  suburban  slum.  "  At  least,"  said  he  to  himself,  in  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning,  as  he  plodded  back  to  his  temporary 
residence  from  a  death-bed  side,  through  a  thick  snowstorm — "  at 
least  in  the  country  we  are  still  Shakespearian.  These  Londoners 
get  more  unintelligible  every  year."  For  a  youth  whom  he  had 
heard  communing  with  another  had  first  said,  "  I'll  have  your  hat, 
Maria,"  which  seemed  to  have  no  meaning;  and  then  when  the 
other  said,  "What  price  'Igh  'Olborn,  Joe?"  had  merely  replied, 
"  So  long,"  and  trotted  away  whistling. 

They  were  the  last  defilers  of  the  English  language,  though, 
that  he  heard  speech  of  for  the  best  part  of  a  two-mile  walk.  For 
all  that  had  a  bed  to  go  to  had  done  so  an  hour  or  more  since,  and 
left  the  white  world  to  the  snowflakes  and  the  police-force — the 
latter  sadly  outnumbered  by  the  former,  and  fairly  driven  to  what- 
ever shelters  official  obligation  allowed.  For  the  flakes,  which  at 
midnight  had  been  large  and  rather  benevolent  than  otherwise, 
with  a  disposition  to  lie  down  quietly  and  not  fuss,  had  become 
email  and  vicious  and  revengeful,  and  were  rushing  point-blank 
along  the  streets  seeking  for  the  eyes  of  passers-by  and  finding 
none.  The  gas-lamps,  which  had  at  first  enjoyed  melting  them  as 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  165 

they  came  down,  were  giving  up  the  attempt  in  despair,  and  had 
each  its  incubus  of  thickening  snow  to  darken  it.  The  Rev. 
Athelstan  found  it  pleasant  and  stimulating — it  reminded  him  of 
the  Alps,  years  ago — and  he  had  only  met  three  vehicles,  all  told, 
in  the  whole  of  his  walk,  so  far.  One  was  a  belated  coster's  cart, 
drif t -blocked ;  whose  donkey,  its  owner,  and  a  policeman  were  try- 
ing to  help  it  out  of  its  difficulties.  He  lent  a  hand,  and  the  rest 
of  his  physical  resources,  most  effectually,  and  earned  benedictions 
and  a  certificate  that  he  was  the  right  sort.  Both  the  policeman 
and  the  costermonger  spoke  as  though  several  sorts  had  been  tried, 
and  been  found  wanting.  The  former,  as  he  wished  him  good- 
night, remarked  that  it  was  a  blizzard  this  time,  and  no  mistake, 
as  though  serious  mistakes  had  been  made  in  the  classification  of 
previous  examples  submitted.  A  sense  of  pass-exams,  hung  in  the 
air.  The  Rev.  Athelstan  said  good-night,  and  tramped  or  waded  off 
through  the  snow,  acknowledging  to  himself  that  he  didn't  know 
why  a  blizzard  was  a  blizzard.  Now  his  impression  had  been  that 
this  one  was  a  bad  snowstorm.  However,  a  policeman  would  know, 
of  course. 

"  American,  I  suppose,"  said  he  to  himself,  u  and  well  up  to  date ! 
Now  I  wonder  ..."  He  stopped  opposite  a  wayside  inn  standing 
back  from  the  road;  a  record  of  the  days  of  an  old  suburban  high- 
way, with  a  drinking-trough  for  horses  and  a  troughlet  for  dogs,  and 
a  swinging  sign,  half  obscured  by  snowblotch  that  might  fall  off, 
or  not.  But  it>  would  in  a  minute,  if  waited  for,  for  its  framing 
creaked  in  the  wind.  "  I  wonder  where  I  am  ? "  he  continued. 
"I've  seen  this  pothouse  before.  I've  photographed  it,  if  it's  the 
same.  It  was  the  Robin  Hood."  A  snow-slip  occurred  at  this  mo- 
ment, and  left  the  outlaw's  face  and  a  portion  of  the  merry  green- 
wood visible.  Oh  dear  yes! — the  Robin  Hood.  No  mistake  about 
that,  anyhow !  The  pause  ended  in  complete  enlightenment. 
"Then  I  know  where  I  am.  There's  the  new  Cazenove  slum  on 
the  left.  Now  I've  got  to  take  care  not  to  go  down  the  wrong  turn- 
ing. One's  a  cul  de  sac;  ends  in  a  fence.  But  I  fancy  mine's  the 
next — yes! — mine's  the  next.  Addy  Fossett's  school's  just  a  bit 
farther  on.  Lady  Arkroyd  said  it  wasn't  a  slum!  A  slum  made 
up  of  whited  sepulchres — well!  suppose  we  say  machine-pointed 
brick  sepulchres,  and  let  'em  go  at  that."  The  difficulty  of  walking 
through  the  snow,  and  the  silence,  both  seemed  to  favour  soliloquy. 
He  plodded  on,  driving  aside  the  dry  white  snowdrift  with  hia 
feet,  and  cogitating. 

How  deadly  dark  and  silent  it  is  down  this  side-street!  Only 
one  gas-lamp  alight  that  one  can  see,  some  way  on.  And  the 


166  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

silence!  One  might  be  murdered  here  so  quietly,  with  so  little 
inconvenience  to  one's  murderer.  And  the  cold !  "  Thank  God  it 
is  me  and  not  Gus,"  says  the  man  in  the  snow  through  whose  mind 
these  thoughts  pass.  "  He  wouldn't  be  kept  at  home,  even  by  a 
blizzard.  Really — if  I  hadn't  a  good  pair  of  eyes  .  .  .  Hullo ! 
what's  that  ? "  He  quickens  his  pace  towards  something  he  has 
seen  or  heard. 

An  instant  after,  and  the  silence  has  vanished.  Piercing  shrieks 
are  on  the  night — a  child's  shrieks — shrieks  of  frenzied  and  intol- 
erable panic,  there,  where  nothing  can  be  distinguished  yet.  .  .  . 
Yes! — there — coming  this  way  through  the  snow — this  side  of  the 
dim  lamp-gleam  the  snowdrift  all  but  hides  .  .  .  but  oh,  so 
small !  How  can  a  thing  so  small  give  such  a  cry  ? 

How  can  it  struggle  so,  either,  as  it  is  caught  and  picked  up  by 
a  pair  of  strong  arms,  and  wrapped  in  the  bosom  of  a  big  over- 
coat ?  "  Anything " — said  the  Rev.  Athelstan,  when  he  told  the 
tale  after — "  anything  to  get  the  poor  little  barefooted,  night- 
gowned  scrap  up  off  the  snow,  and  out  of  the  cold!  The  pluck  of 
the  midget!  I  never  saw  such  a  baby.  Not  seven  yet — just  think 
of  it ! "  For  he  often  told  of  this  adventure  of  his  afterwards. 
But  let  us  tell  it  now. 

"  Oh,  pleathe — pleathe — let  me  down ! "  It  is  such  a  heart- 
harrowing  cry  for  liberty  that  its  hearer  almost  believes  himself 
cruel  to  shut  his  ears  to  it.  But — the  cold !  "  Oh,  pleathe  let  me 
go  to  c-call  for  the  Spoleece  to  c-come  to  ...  Uncle  Bob.  .  .  . '' 

"  I'm  the  Police,  dear  child,  this  time.  You  show  me  where 
Uncle  Bob  is,  won't  you  ?  Hush-sh !  .  .  .  there,  dear,  now !  .  .  . 
that  way,  is  he  ?  That's  a  good  brave  little  girl.  ...  In  at  this 
door,  is  it?  That's  right!  Now  I'll  put  you  down."  And  then 
Uncle  Bob's  niece  is  on  the  ground,  pulling  with  all  her  small  force 
at  the  skirt  of  the  big  coat  that  has  sheltered  her.  She  doesn't  be- 
lieve the  gentleman's  statement  that  he  is  the  Police;  or  only  with 
some  important  reservations.  But  he  is  on  the  side  of  the  right, 
she  is  sure,  and  is  vast  and  powerful.  It  is  no  use  her  pulling,  if  he 
does  not  mean  to  come  after  all.  But  all  is  well,  for  he  has  only 
paused  to  get  off  the  big  coat  the  snow  falls  in  lumps  from  as  he 
leaves  it  behind  him  on  the  floor,  and  is  pulled  along  the  dark  nar- 
row passage  towards  some  mysterious  male  voice  out  of  all  keeping 
with  its  surroundings — a  voice  with  something  of  a  Hyde  Park 
orator's  rant  in  it — pulled  by  the  little  nightgowned  morsel  that 
seems,  now  that  the  end  is  gained,  and  help  has  come,  to  be  quite 
dumb  with  terror. 

Along  the  narrow  passage  and  through  the  door  on  the  left. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  167 

The  room  is  lighted  by  a  candle  at  its  last  gasp  on  a  side-table, 
and  the  gleam  through  the  window,  above  the  closed  shutters,  of 
the  street-lamp  outside.  There  is  light  enough  to  see  all  that  is 
going  on  in  that  room,  and  it  is  a  sight  to  give  pause  to  the  readiest 
help,  and  unnerve  the  most  willing  hand.  For  any  succour,  in  the 
very  bringing  of  it,  may  in  this  case  undo  itself. 

Against  the  wall,  in  the  corner  next  the  window,  is  the  ashy 
face  of  a  terror-stricken  woman,  kneeling  with  hands  outstretched 
to  avert  violence  threatened  by  a  man  who  is  waving  some  weapon 
before  her  eyes,  while  he  talks  incoherently.  It  is  his  voice  that 
sounded  like  a  popular  orator's,  making  telling  points.  What 
seemed  a  meaning  when  the  words  were  unheard  vanishes  as  they 
become  audible. 

"You  keep  still  afore  I  pin  you  to  the  wall.  You  *  *  *  well 
know  that  what  I  swear  to  by  Goard's  the  *  *  *  truth.  Climb  up 
and  see — all  I  say  is,  climb  up  and  see!  The  *  *  *  noospaper's 
on  my  side,  and  d'you  think  they  don't  *  *  *  know.  .  .  .  Ah ! — 
would  you  ? — steady — steady !  I'll  put  a  strap  on  either  side  of  you 
to  keep  you  steady.  You  and  Jim  thought  you  were  going  to  have 
it  your  own  blooming  way.  And  where  d'you  think  he's  gone?  .  .  . 
He — he — he !  "  He  laughed  a  sniggering  laugh.  "  Jim,  he's  gone 
along  the  railings.  Now,  don't  you  go  sayin'  I  haven't  told  you,  or 
I'll  just  rip  you  up  afore  the  clock  strikes.  I  can  have  your  liver 
out  just  as  soon  as  not.  I  can  give  a  reference,  by  Goard!  Just 
you  ask  my  wife — she  can  get  a  *  *  *  reference."  And  then  the 
Rev.  Mr.  Taylor  saw  that  what  he  held  in  his  hand  was  a  pointed 
cobbler's  knife,  a  deadly  instrument. 

The  little  girl,  clinging  to  him  in  convulsive  terror,  made  suf- 
ficiently prompt  action  almost  impossible.  He  felt  that  if  he  could 
have  caught  the  man's  eye,  he  might  have  been  able  to  control  him. 
But  as  it  was,  any  movement  on  his  part  might  have  meant  a  stab 
in  the  woman's  heart.  He  could  see  she  had  on  only  a  thin  sort  of 
flannel  wrapper  over  a  night-dress,  and  he  understood  that  the  man, 
in  his  delirium,  conceived  her  to  be  some  enemy,  not  his  wife  cer- 
tainly. What  she  was  of  course  he  did  not  know.  The  lips  of  his 
mind  formed  the  simple  word  "drink" — the  evil  principle  whose 
name  accounts  for  half  the  ills  flesh  would  have  been  so  glad  never 
to  come  to  the  enjoyment  of,  but  must  perforce  inherit. 

He  dared  not  spring  upon  the  man  to  pinion  him,  with  that 
hideous  knife  so  near  the  woman's  life-blood.  But  a  change  was  to 
come — one  caused  by  the  woman  herself.  She  could  barely  gasp, 
so  paralyzed  was  articulate  speech;  but  the  few  words  she  said, 
"  Catch  hold  upon  him  behind,  master ! "  were  heard  and  under- 


168  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

stood  by  the  man,  who  instantly  swung  round  to  be  ready  for  some 
unknown  opponent.  The  Rev.  Athelstan  felt  greatly  relieved. 
The  position  was  simplified:  he  was  now  face  to  face  with  a 
delirious  maniac  with  a  knife — a  knife  that  seemed  made  for  mur- 
der— that  was  all ! 

"Thank  God  it  isn't  Gus,  but  me!"  said  a  passing  thought  as 
he  caught  the  madman's  eye,  just  too  late  to  unsettle,  as  he  might 
have  done — so  he  fancied — the  delivery  of  a  thrust  backed  by  the 
whole  strength  of  the  arm  that  sent  it.  It  was  well  for  him — so 
straight  did  the  blow  come — that  the  clerical  hat  he  pulled  off  to 
stop  it  had  a  wide  hard  brim  and  a  round  hard  crown,  good  for  a 
point  to  slip  on.  The  boss  of  a  Japanese  targe  could  not  have 
balked  it  more  cleverly.  Had  it  struck  the  centre  straight,  it 
would  have  pierced  through  to  the  hand  that  held  it.  As  it  was, 
it  went  aslant,  striking  twice  on  the  shining  silk  nap,  but  quite 
harmlessly. 

"  Give  me  the  knife,  my  man.  I  can  show  you  how  to  use  it 
better  than  that."  His  voice  could  not  have  been  more  collected 
if  he  had  been  reading  the  Commination  Service,  without  meaning 
it,  in  the  little  old  peaceful  church  at  Royd.  The  delirious  man, 
whose  conception  of  his  own  position  was  probably  that  of  a  vic- 
tim somehow  at  bay,  surrounded  by  conspirators,  was  for  a  mo- 
ment convinced  that  he  would  better  it  by  compliance,  and  was 
indeed  actually  surrendering  the  knife,  when  the  woman's  hys- 
terical voice  broke  in,  and  undid  everything. 

"  Yes — you  give  the  gentleman  up  the  knife,  Robert  I  You  give 
it  him  to  keep  for  you  now  you  ain't  yourself,  for  to  take  good 
care  of  and  giv'  back.  He'll  do  the  best  by  you !  You  may  trust 
the  gentleman  .  .  .  etc.,  etc."  The  Rev.  Athelstan's  mind  said: 
"  Deuce  take  the  woman ! — can't  she  hold  her  tongue  ?  "  but  of 
course  he  said  nothing  so  secular  aloud. 

The  lunatic — for  he  was  little  else — had  all  but  given  up  the 
knife,  but  of  course  now  changed  his  mind.  "  You're  answerin: 
for  him,  I  see ! "  he  exclaimed,  with  so  sane  a  voice  it  was  hard  to 
think  him  delirious.  "  I  can  see  round  some  of  yer  better  than  you 
tli ink.  Yes — Muster  Preedy !  Ah!  .  .  .  would  you  .  .  .  would 
you?  ..."  This  with  an  expression  of  intense  cunning,  with 
the  knife  held  behind  him ;  and  a  dangerous  tendency  to  edge  back 
towards  the  woman,  all  the  while  watching  the  Rev.  Athelstan  with 
a  sly,  ugly  half-grin. 

As  he  got  nearer  to  the  woman,  she  became  unable  to  control  her- 
self— little  wonder,  perhaps ! — and  broke  out  hysterically :  "  Oh, 
God  ha'  mercy  1 — stop  him!  stop  him! — Oh,  Lard! — oh, 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  169 

Christ !  .  .  . "  and  so  on.  It  was  time  to  act,  and  Athelstan  Tay- 
lor knew  it.  Delay  might  be  fatal.  Guided  by  some  instinct  he 
could  not  explain,  he  shouted  with  sudden  decision :  "  They're  here, 
you  fool !  Can't  you  hear  them  ?  "  and  then,  seizing  on  the  pause 
in  which  the  maniac's  attention — caught  also  for  the  moment,  per- 
haps, by  railway  sounds  without — wandered  to  this  mysterious 
"  they,"  sprang  upon  him,  and  by  great  good  luck  pinioned  his 
knife-hand  as  both  rolled  together  on  the  carpetless  floor.  "  Thank 
heaven  it's  me,  not  Gus !  "  thought  he  again,  as  he  and  his  antag- 
onist pitched  heavily  on  the  ground.  He  could  feel  the  great 
strength  there  was  still  in  the  miserable  victim  of  the  fiend  Al- 
cohol. Often  patients  with  this  disorder  will  need  three  or  four 
men  to  hold  them — indeed,  sometimes  develope  abnormal  muscular 
strength,  even  while  its  tremors  are  running  riot  through  their 
whole  system. 

But  Mr.  Steptoe's  strength  would  have  been  abnormally  de- 
veloped indeed  to  enable  him  to  contend  against  the  successful 
competitor  in  a  hundred  athletic  contests  in  the  old  'Varsity  days. 
A  few  sharp  struggles,  and  he  lay  powerless,  his  adversary  kneeling 
over  him»  grasping  his  two  wrists,  while  he  cursed  and  muttered 
below,  before  the  railway  sounds,  connected  apparently  with  the 
stopping  of  an  almost  endless  luggage-train,  had  subsided  into  mere 
clinks  that  seemed  to  soothe  it  to  stillness.  But  the  knife  was  still 
in  his  right  hand. 

"Now  where's  that  little  maid?"  Our  little  Lizarann  had 
never  run  away,  as  some  children  might  have  done,  but  had  held 
on  bravely  through  the  whole  of  the  terrifying  scene,  full  of  ad- 
miration for  this  new  Policeman — she  almost  thought  he  was  really 
one ;  and  when  she  heard  him  ask  for  her,  she  found  voice  to  reply, 
not  very  articulately.  She  was  there,  please! — blue  with  the  cold 
and  her  teeth  chattering.  Aunt  Stingy  was  g-goed  away.  So 
much  the  better,  the  new  Policeman  seemed  to  think.  He  con- 
tinued :  "  Very  well,  my  child ! — now  you  can  be  useful.  .  .  .  No, 
don't  call  your  aunty.  We'll  do  without  her;  she's  no  use.  You 
do  just  as  I  tell  you — just  exactly !  "  Lizarann  nodded  her  alacrity 
to  obey  orders.  "Me? — yass!"  is  her  brief  undertaking. 

The  gentleman  looked  round  at  her,  still  grasping  the  wrists  of 
his  captive,  who  muttered  on  wildly,  lost  in  a  forest  of  execrations 
without  meaning.  He  seemed  satisfied  that  the  child  could  be 
trusted,  and  determined  at  any  rate  to  try  a  desperate  expedient  to 
get  that  horrible  knife  out  of  the  maniac's  clutch.  The  only  other 
course  would  be  to  call  or  send  for  help.  Send  whom?  This  baby 
out  in  the  snow  again?  Heaven  forbid!  As  for  the  woman,  she 


170 

was  no  use.  He  could  hear  her  hysterics  in  the  next  room.  No ! — 
if  the  child  only  dared  do  exactly  as  he  told  her,  he  would  soon 
have  that  knife  safe  out  of  the  way. 

"  Look  here,  my  dear,  where's  the  box  of  matches — the  lucifer 
matches?  Now  don't  you  be  frightened,  but  do  as  I  tell  you. 
You  light  a  match !  "  Lizarann  obeyed  dutifully,  though  her  hand 
shook.  "  Now,  you  know,  if  you  blow  that  match  out,  there'll  be  a 
red  spark,  won't  there?  .  .  .  Very  well  then,  or  yass,  if  you 
prefer  it.  Now  I  want  you  just  to  touch  your  father's  hand  with 
it  ...  oh,  he's  your  uncle,  is  he?  .  .  .  well! — now  you'll  have 
to  light  another.  .  .  .  Now  you  touch  his  hand  with  it — don't 
you  be  frightened." 

Lizarann  followed  her  instructions  without  question.  Whatever 
the  gentleman  said  was  right.  Her  duty  was  obedience.  But  she 
broke  out  in  spasmodic  terror  at  the  result  of  what  she  had  sup- 
posed to  be  some  curious  experiment;  not  to  be  understood  by  her, 
but  certainly  beneficial. 

And  Athelstan  Taylor  needed  all  his  strength  to  retain  the  hand 
that  was  scorched,  as  his  prisoner — or  rather  patient — gave  a  great 
plunge  and  a  yell,  as  the  fire  touched  him.  But  he  kept  his  grip, 
though  it  was  his  left  hand  against  the  delirious  man's  right;  and 
the  knife,  relinquished  in  the  uncontrollable  start,  was  left  lying 
on  the  floor  as  he  dragged  him  across  the  room  away  from  it.  He 
could  breathe  freer  now  that  the  knife  was  out  of  the  way. 

He  inferred  afterwards  that  the  whole  thing  had  happened  very 
quickly;  for  the  railway-occurrence  without  seemed  to  explain 
itself  as  a  convoy  of  empty  trucks  shunting  on  a  siding  to  allow 
an  express  to  shriek  past — an  express  that  cared  nothing  for 
blizzards,  and  came  with  a  vengeance,  just  as  he  gave  his  last 
instructions  to  Lizarann,  waiting  a  moment  for  that  little  person's 
terror  to  subside. 

"  That's  a  good  little  girl.  Now  pick  up  that  knife  and  take  it 
away.  And  then  .  .  .  well ! — and  then  .  .  .  shut  the  door  after 
you  and  go  to  bed,  for  God's  sake,  and  get  warm  .  .  .  What? 
.  .  .  no! — never  mind  Aunt  What's-her-name ?  .  .  .  don't  say 
anything  to  her — only  go  to  bed  too.  What  did  you  say  her  name 
was?  Aunt  Stingy?"  It  didn't  seem  probable,  but  the  little 
maiden  evidently  felt  surprised  at  its  being  thought  the  reverse. 
She  confirmed  it  with  gravity,  and  was  departing,  small  and  bitterly 
cold,  but  intensely  responsible,  when  the  new  Policeman  called  her 
back. 

"  Look  here,  poppet ! — you  stand  the  street-door  wide  open,  and 
then  you  go  to  bed.  Now  shut  the  door." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  171 

Lizarann  obeyed  religiously,  and  crept  away  silently  to  bed. 
Only,  as  she  passed  through  her  daddy's  room  with  its  empty  pil- 
low, life  became  too  hard  for  her  to  bear.  But  tears  came  to  help, 
big  ones  in  plenty;  and  Lizarann's  bed  was  kind.  It  absorbed, 
received,  engulfed,  all  but  cancelled  the  small  mass  of  affliction 
that  cowered  into  it  and  stopped  its  ears  and  did  its  best  to  cease. 
In  two  minutes  after  leaving  the  New  Policeman,  Lizarann  was 
little  more  than  a  stifled  sob,  at  intervals,  in  the  dark;  in  five,  at 
most,  had  cried  herself  to  sleep. 

Mrs.  Steptoe,  after  giving  way — quite  excusably,  to  our  thinking 
— upstairs  for  ten  minutes  or  so,  began  to  be  aware  that  her  self- 
control  was  returning.  But  being  hysterical  as  well  as  human,  she 
utilized  it  to  go  on  moaning  and  gasping  intentionally,  some  time 
after  she  had  ceased  to  be  able  to  do  it  involuntarily.  Curiosity 
about  who  had  given  such  a  sudden  and  effectual  succour  then  be- 
gan to  get  the  better  of  mere  terror,  and  she  perceived  she  ought  to 
make  an  effort.  So  she  went  cautiously  downstairs  and  listened, 
outside  the  door,  to  the  voices  in  the  front  room;  her  husband's, 
now  seeming  less  definitely  insane,  more  weak  and  drivelling;  and 
that  of  the  stranger,  whom  she  found  it  easiest  to  take  for  granted, 
although  unexplained.  Very  severe  shock  makes  the  mind  travel 
on  the  line  of  least  resistance.  No! — she  wouldn't  knock  at  the 
door  just  yet  to  ask  if  her  services  were  wanted.  That  would  do 
presently,  especially  as  she  expected  stupor  would  soon  follow  her 
husband's  outbreak,  and  if  she  showed  herself  now  he  might  have 
a  return.  So  after  listening  a  few  moments,  sufficiently  to  satisfy 
herself  that  the  stranger's  voice  showed  a  complete  mastery  of  the 
position,  Aunt  Stingy  retired  into  the  bedroom  adjoining,  to  be 
handy  in  case  of  anything — so  she  described  her  action  after- 
wards— and  then,  having  made  sure  that  her  niece  was  in  bed  in 
the  little  room  and  sound  asleep,  lay  down  on  Jim's  vacant  bed  for 
just  a  half-minute  and  closed  her  eyes.  And  would  you  have  be- 
lieved it? — or  rather,  it  should  be  said,  would  Mrs.  Hacker,  to  whom 
she  told  it,  have  believed  it  ? — she  was  that  dead  wore  out  that  only 
listening  for  two  minutes  to  the  voices  going  on  steady,  as  you 
might  say,  set  her  off  half  unconscious-like,  and  in  an  unguarded 
moment  sleep  took  her  by  surprise.  Just  the  letting  of  her  eyes 
close  to  had  made  all  the  difference !  Kep'  open,  no  such  a  thing ! 
In  this  case  they  were  not  kept  open,  and  there  was  such  a  thing. 
It  took  the  form  of  profound  sleep. 

But  before  leaving  the  passage — the  one  known  by  the  rather 
grandiose  name  of  The  Hall — Aunt  Stingy  first  removed  her 


172  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

rescuer's  overcoat,  that  still  lay  on  the  ground,  and  hung  it  on  a 
neighbouring  hook.  A  more  intelligent  person  would  have  seen 
that  its  owner  might  want  it,  for  warmth,  in  a  fireless  room.  She 
must  needs  then  decide  that  the  street  door  had  no  business  to  be 
on  the  jar,  and  it  was  just  that  child's  carelessness  leaving  it 
open;  and  closed  it,  noiselessly.  This  was  fatal  to  a  calculation  of 
Athelstan  Taylor's,  for  he  had  told  Lizarann  to  leave  the  door  open 
in  the  full  confidence  that  the  policeman  on  the  beat  would  notice 
it;  and  that  he  would  by  this  means  be  brought  into  communication 
with  the  outer  world,  without  having  to  leave  his  dangerous  charge 
alone  in  the  house  with  that  plucky  baby  and  that  weak  woman ! 

No  doubt  a  policeman  did  come  down  the  cul  de  sac  street,  but 
even  a  policeman's  step  is  inaudible  on  three  inches  of  very  dry 
snow.  It  is  otherwise  when  the  snow  is  partly  thawed,  especially  if 
a  second  frost  comes.  Mr.  Taylor  concluded,  believing  that  the 
street-door  was  "  on  the  jar,"  that  the  policeman's  bull's-eye  would 
at  once  detect  it,  and  that  his  guard  was  sure  to  be  relieved;  but 
the  hours  went  by  and  nothing  came.  It  is  more  likely,  though, 
that  the  policeman  passed  at  a  moment  of  noise  from  the  railway, 
for  goods-trains  occurred  at  intervals  through  the  night. 

More  than  once  he  was  all  but  resolved  to  leave  the  man's  side 
and  summon  the  woman,  or  go  himself  for  medical  help,  whatever 
the  risk  might  be.  But  he  did  not  know  what  other  knives  might 
be  within  reach,  and  he  was  one  of  those  people  who  always  decide 
on  the  righter  of  two  courses,  however  little  may  be  the  difference 
between  them.  Not  the  smallest  risk  should  be  run  through  fault 
of  his  of  harm  to  come  to  that  plucky  infant — well! — or  to  the 
woman,  for  that  matter.  But  he  was  obliged  to  admit  that  he  felt 
less  keen  on  that  point. 

So,  though  he  relaxed  his  hold  on  the  nran  as  his  paroxysms  of 
violence  died  down — for  they  were  intermittent — he  never  allowed 
him  to  go  quite  free,  and  scarcely  took  his  eyes  from  him  to  in- 
ventory the  scanty  contents  of  the  ill-furnished  room  he  sat  in. 
For  he  contrived  to  shift  the  position  in  a  moment  of  the  patient's 
quiescence,  some  half  an  hour  after  he  found  himself  alone  with 
him;  half -dragging,  half-lifting  him  on  to  an  untempting  and  un- 
restful  sofa,  whose  innate  horse-hair  was  courting  investigation 
through  slits  and  holes  that  had  evaded  the  watchfulness  of  inef- 
fectual buttons,  guardians  of  its  reticence  in  days  gone  by.  One 
of  those  articles  of  furniture  of  which  we  know  at  once  that  the 
understraps  have  given,  and  will  have  to  be  seen  to  some  day.  An 
analogous  chair  was  within  reach;  and  the  New  Policeman,  not 
in  love  with  his  job,  but  strong  in  his  determination  to  see  it  out, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  173 

made  up  his  mind  to  pass  the  rest  of  the  night  on  it,  if  necessary, 
watching  the  fluctuations  of  his  patient's  delirium.  Oh,  how 
thankful  he  felt  that  all  this  had  befallen  him,  not  Gus !  What  a 
pleasure  to  think  of  his  consumptive  friend  in  the  best  room  at  the 
Rectory;  sound  asleep,  said  Hope,  uncontradicted. 

An  hour  or  more  passed.  The  violence  of  the  patient  had  become 
more  and  more  fitful,  and  seemed  at  length  to  be  giving  place  to 
mere  stupor.  A  little  longer,  and  he  would  sleep.  But  suppose  his 
heart  failed  and  he  died  in  his  sleep.  Mr.  Taylor  had  had  an 
uncle  who  drank,  and  who  died  of  collapse  after  just  such  an  at- 
tack of  delirium  tremens.  Yes — but  how  long  after?  Then,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  was  no  evidence  to  show  how  long  this  man's 
attack  had  been  going  on.  Nor  was  the  Rev.  Athelstan  quite  clear 
that  the  case  was  uncomplicated ;  the  brain  might  be  unsound  at  the 
best  of  times.  He  tried  to  remember  all  he  had  seen  or  heard  of 
the  disorder.  His  impression  certainly  had  been  that  insomnia 
was  a  characteristic  symptom,  and  invariable.  Now  this  man 
seemed  to  be  sinking  into  a  state  of  coma.  He  would  keep  watch 
over  him,  at  least  until  he  seemed  quite  unconscious,  and  then  he 
would  try  to  get  help  from  without.  He  might  be  able  to  rouse 
a  neighbour,  and  so  communicate  with  the  police  and  send  for 
medical  assistance.  What  he  was  most  anxious  to  do  was  to  get  the 
man  safe  out  of  the  way,  at  the  workhouse-infirmary  or  the  police- 
station,  and  to  feel  sure  that  he  could  leave  the  house  safely  with 
that  child  in  it.  He  would  come  back  next  day  as  soon  as  he  was 
at  liberty,  to  find  out  more  about  her.  It  was  fortunate  that  to- 
day was  Tuesday,  not  Saturday — or  rather  he  should  have  said, 
Wednesday,  not  Sunday.  But  one  always  thinks,  when  one  has 
been  up  all  night,  that  it  is  still  yesterday ! 

Yes! — the  breath  of  the  man  was  coming  more  regularly,  and 
his  pulse  felt  slower  and  steadier.  In  a  moment  it  would  be  safe 
to  leave  him  and  look  for  help.  He  withdrew  his  hand  from  the 
wrist  it  held  and  touched  the  sleeper's  forehead.  It  was  scarcely 
so  hot  as  he  had  expected  it  to  be.  But  it  seemed  insensitive  to 
his  touch,  as  there  was  no  perceptible  shrinking  from  it.  The  pa- 
tient could  be  safely  left  for  a  moment. 

He  rose  to  his  feet  and  stretched  himself,  glad  of  the  respite. 
In  the  account  of  the  affair  that  he  wrote  later  to  his  substitute 
at  Royd,  he  lays  claim  to  having  had  no  feeling  at  this  moment  but 
a  wish  for  clean  warm  water  to  wash  the  touch  of  the  drunkard's 
wrists  off.  He  watched  the  motionless  figure  on  the  couch  for  a 
few  moments,  and  the  breathing  satisfied  him.  He  could  be  spared ; 
for  as  short  a  time  as  need  be,  though. 


174  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

He  opened  the  door  quietly  and  went  out.  But  he  returned  to 
lock  it;  removing  the  key  from  within,  but  leaving  it  in  the  lock. 
Then  he  opened  the  street  door  and  looked  out.  The  little  one 
had  evidently  misunderstood  his  instruction  to  leave  it  open — 
well!  she  really  was  almost  a  baby.  However,  that  was  enough  to 
account  for  the  non-appearance  of  any  policeman.  No  police- 
officer  ever  leaves  a  "  stood  open  "  door  uninvestigated  in  the  small 
hours  of  the  morning. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

OF  THE  END  OF  THE  BLIZZARD,  AND  OF  SIMON  MAGUS.  HOW  MR.  TAYLOR 
FOUND  A  DOCTOR.  OF  A  CHASE  THROUGH  THE  SNOW,  AND  A  CANAL- 
LOCK.  WHAT  WAS  FOUND  IN  IT.  BUT  SIMON  WAS  INVISIBLE 

How  sweet  and  white  and  silent  was  the  huge  shroud  of  snow 
that  lay  so  carefully  on  road  and  roof  alike;  unbroken,  in  this  un- 
trodden stillness,  by  so  much  as  the  memory  of  a  rut  inherited  from 
yesterday's  traffic;  unmelted,  even  on  the  chimney-stacks,  by  the 
expiring  efforts  of  yesterday's  fires!  How  satisfied  the  stars  that 
began  to  twinkle  through  the  clearing  veil  of  the  snowdrift  dying 
down,  that  the  work  of  hiding  London  from  them  had  been  done 
thoroughly  and  well,  and  that  they  might  shine  on  something  clean 
at  last!  For  the  blizzard  had  gone  to  an  appointment  elsewhere, 
and  the  few  flakes  of  belated  snow  that  were  afloat  had  given  up  all 
thought  of  blinding  human  eyes,  and  only  seemed  to  pause  in  their 
selection  of  a  resting-place.  They  had  an  cmbarras  de  choix. 

As  the  sole  spectator  of  the  stillness  stood  looking  out  into  the 
night,  and  thinking  Wordsworth  to  himself,  he  saw  the  fixed  red 
eye  of  a  Cyclops  railway-signal  through  the  clear  air;  snow- 
scoured,  and  innocent,  so  far,  of  smoke.  All  that  mighty  heart 
was  lying  still — yes !  But  that  engine,  idling  on  the  line  and  wide 
awake,  felt  free  to  wander  to  and  fro,  with  clanks,  and  finally  to  ex- 
ecute an  arpeggio  of  truncated  snorts  downwards,  and  give  a  sud- 
den yell,  and  depart  behind  a  steam-blast  from  beneath  its  apron. 
Then  Mr.  Taylor  saw  distinctly,  at  the  end  of  his  wrong  turning, 
the  fence  that  stultified  it  as  a  thoroughfare. 

A  wall  of  snow  was  against  the  lower  half  of  the  door,  and  the 
whole  row  of  houses  it  made  one  of  was  nearly  masked  by  the 
drift-pile  heaped  against  it ;  and  the  snow  that  had  caught  and  held 
against  every  roughness  on  the  upright  wall  lay  thick  on  every 
ledge  and  slope,  and  filled  in  every  cavity.  A  sense  of  compromise 
was  abroad  in  the  air — an  anticipated  suggestion  of  a  thaw;  not 
yet,  you  know,  but  in  time!  Athelstan  Taylor,  as  a  neighbour's 
clock  struck  five  in  a  hurry,  knew  so  well  what  the  shovels  meant 
to  sound  like  in  the  morning  while  all  was  still  dry;  and  what  the 
falls  of  snow  would  be  like  from  uncleared  roofs  later  on,  when 
much  would  be  slush. 

176 


176  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

There  was  not  a  soul  in  sight  in  the  cul  de  sac  street,  which  had 
so  obviously  been  the  wrong  turning.  There  was  consolation  in 
that,  though,  for  the  Rev.  Athelstan,  for  if  it  had  been  Gus  and  not 
he,  Gus  would  have  known  his  ground  better,  and  passed  on.  But 
then ! — what  might  not  have  happened  to  that  poor  little  kid,  asleep 
in  there?  However,  it  was  necessary  now  to  think  what  was  to  be 
done.  Not  a  soul  in  sight,  and  hardly  a  sound  to  be  heard;  the 
very  murmur  of  the  city's  traffic,  that  never  quite  dies,  barely 
audible!  Every  house  more  than  ever  like  its  neighbour,  in  its 
cloak  of  snow.  Which  door  should  he  choose,  to  knock  at?  One 
opposite  looked  the  most  promising,  he  thought.  But  he  would 
put  on  his  greatcoat  before  crossing  through  the  cold  night  air. 
Where  was  that  coat,  by  the  way?  So — back  into  the  house  to 
get  it ! 

He  struck  a  wax  vesta  to  make  the  dark  passage  visible,  and  soon 
saw  where  the  woman  had  hung  it  on  a  peg  near  the  stairway. 
Should  he,  after  all,  go  upstairs  and  rouse  her? — Well,  no,  on  the 
whole!  Because  he  thought  the  woman  bad  for  the  patient,  and 
better  out  of  the  way  on  that  account.  It  did  not  occur  to  him 
that  she  was  in  the  adjacent  room,  and  the  exploration  above  con- 
tributed as  an  obstacle  to  his  decision.  He  felt  readier  for  a  col- 
loquy with  a  roused  next-door  neighbour,  than  for  shaking  a 
stupefied  sleeper  to  wakefulness — one,  too,  whom  he  had  very  poor 
reliance  on.  Besides,  his  own  clearest  scheme  was  to  get  some  safe 
person  to  take  charge  of  the  patient,  while  he  himself  went  for  a 
doctor.  If  he  did  this,  the  doctor  would  come.  If  he  sent,  perhaps 
no !  How  could  he  tell  ? 

But  after  this  slight  delay,  just  as  well  to  look  in  at  the  sleeper 
once  more  before  leaving  him !  The  Rev.  Athelstan,  feeling  very 
much  like  the  New  Policeman,  opened  the  door  cautiously.  Just 
as  well,  for  his  charge  was  no  longer  where  he  had  left  him.  He 
could  see  him  in  the  half-light,  blundering  against  the  window- 
shutter,  apparently  without  purpose,  and  talking  to  himself. 

"Everything's  took  away,  by  Goard!  Now  if  I  could  just  lay 
'ands  on  that  there  *  *  *  knife,  I  could  slit  'em  all  up.  All  the 
biling;  and  that  'd  make  me  even  with  'em!  Who's  makin'  any 
offer  to  stop  me  ?  "  He  muttered  on,  and  there  seemed  no  object  in 
interrupting  him.  Very  likely  he  would  lie  down  and  doze  off 
again.  A  few  minutes'  patience,  anyhow! 

Suddenly  he  stopped  and  turned.  And  then  perceiving  Athelstan 
Taylor  as  he  stood  by  the  half-open  door  watching  him  intently, 
he  addressed  him  exactly  as  though  he  were  one  of  a  succession 
of  applicants  or  customers,  whom  he  had  satisfied  so  far. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  177 

"  Now  who  might  you  be,  master  ?  'And  over  your  job !  I'll 
be  answerable  to  see  to  it  by  to-morrow  forenoon."  He  seemed  for 
the  moment  quite  composed  and  businesslike,  then  suddenly 
changed  to  shrewd  suspicion.  "  Unless  you're — unless  you're — un- 
less you're  .  .  .  No ! — would  you  ?  That's  not  playing  fair,  by 
Goard!  Come — you're  a  gentleman! — give  a  beggar  his  fair 
chance.  ..."  For  a  sort  of  wily  approach,  as  though  to  somehow 
circumvent  an  object  of  suspicion,  had  been  promptly  intercepted, 
and  he  found  himself  firmly  held  as  before.  Then  an  intolerable 
horror  seemed  to  seize  on  him  quite  suddenly.  "  God's  mercy — 
keep  him  off — keep  him  off !  I'll  never  let  on  about  him  to  no  one. 
I  promise.  Only  give  me  a  blooming  Testament.  I'll  swear !  " 
He  asked  several  times  for  a  Testament,  variously  described,  rather 
to  the  amusement  than  otherwise  of  his  hearer,  whose  sense  of 
language  discriminated  between  words  with  meanings  and  ex- 
pletives without.  The  drunkard's  manner  seemed  to  him  to  throw 
doubt  on  the  validity  of  any  affidavit  made  on  an  unstained  volume. 

But  there  was  no  amusement — nothing  but  a  shudder — to  be  got 
out  of  the  intense  conviction  of  his  delirium  that  there  was  some 
horror — some  spectre  or  nightmare,  God  knows  what! — in  ambush 
behind  the  man  who  held  him.  Those  who  have  nursed  any 
ordinary  fever-patient  through  the  hours  of  low  vitality  in  the 
night,  know  how  hard  it  is  to  struggle  against  a  sort  of  be-lief  in 
the  reality  of  his  delusions — against  the  sympathetic  dread,  at  least, 
that  all  but  does  duty  for  a  real  belief.  In  delirium  tremens  this 
conviction  is  overwhelming,  and  the  Rev.  Athelstan  almost  felt  it 
would  be  an  easement,  just  once,  to  glance  round  behind  him,  and 
make  sure  there  was  no  one  else  in  the  room.  And  this,  although 
the  drunkard's  description  seemed  to  apply  to  a  conjurer  (with  the 
usual  drawback)  who  had  escaped  from  his  coffin,  but  might  be 
got  back  if  we  was  sharp.  His  conviction  of  the  reality  of  this  per- 
son was  too  fervid  to  be  ridiculous,  'or  anything  but  unearthly; 
even  when  he  added,  as  confirmatory,  that  he  was  a  Hebrew  con- 
jurer, as  well  as  a  sanguinary  one.  Simon  Magus,  perhaps? — 
thought  the  Rev.  Athelstan.  And  when  he  told  his  friend  Gus  Fos- 
eett  of  this  after,  he  pretended  it  had  made  him  laugh. 

The  sound  of  a  child  crying,  surely  ?  Yes — the  voice  of  the  little 
girl,  in  an  agony  of  grief  or  fear,  in  the  next  room !  He  flung  the 
madman  from  him,  and  passed  out  of  the  room,  locking  him  in. 
"I  heard  him,"  said  he,  afterwards,  "begging  me  to  keep  Simon 
Magus  off,  but  I  couldn't  stop  to  see  to  it."  He  went  into  the  back 
room,  where  Lizarann,  roused  by  memory  of  her  miseries  from  the 
lighter  sleep  of  morning,  was  shedding  bitter  tears  because  Daddy 


178  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

was  not  there,  but  in  the  Hospital.  Who  does  not  know  how  the 
consciousness  of  affliction  awaiting  us  will  drag  us  awake,  however 
much  we  may  strive  to  remain  in  dreamland?  Lizarann  was  glad 
of  the  gentleman,  though,  whatever  he  was.  And  it  was  all  the 
easier  for  her  to  give  a  short  abstract  of  her  tragedy  of  the  night 
before,  that  her  aunt  had  gone  upstairs  to  dress,  as  a  preliminary 
to  action  in  connection  with  the  front  parlour,  whatever  it  was  that 
was  going  on  there.  For  whether  anyone  was  there  with  her  hus- 
band— the  gentleman  of  the  night  before,  or  a  policeman,  or  doctor 
perhaps — she  had  yet  to  learn.  And  she  was  horribly  cold.  A 
favourable  disposition  towards  lighting  a  bit  of  fire  in  the  kitchen 
was  all  the  more  marked  on  this  account. 

The  very  small  person  sobbing  in  a  very  dirty  nightgown  in  the 
middle  of  the  back  room  could  not — so  Athelstan  Taylor  decided — 
go  on  indefinitely  unwanned  on  such  a  morning  as  this.  He  re- 
joiced to  feel  that  there  was  still  plenty  of  vital  heat  in  her  rudi- 
ment of  a  carcass,  as  he  wrapped  it  in  the  first  thing  that  came 
to  hand,  a  stray  relic  of  a  blanket  of  days  gone  by.  He  picked  the 
little  bundle,  so  compacted,  up  on  his  knee,  and  helped  the  sub- 
sidence of  its  sobs  with  a  word  or  two  of  consolation.  While  doing 
so,  he  could  hear  what  difficulties  his  case  next  door  was  getting 
into  with  Simon  Magus. 

"  Berbecause  derdaddy's  in  the  Sussospital  and  hurted  his  leg," 
said  Lizarann,  as  far  as  our  spelling  will  carry  us,  in  reply  to  in- 
quiry. 

"That's  a  good  little  woman!  Now  she'll  tell  me  all  about  it. 
How  did  Daddy  hurt  his  leg?  " 

Lizarann  settled  down  to  her  narrative.  Here  was  human  sym- 
pathy, at  last,  for  her  real  trouble.  For  all  the  dreadful  scene  of 
last  night  was  only  Uncle  Bob;  and  of  course  that  sort  of  thing  was 
always  happening,  more  or  less,  with  uncles.  Not  daddies,  look 
you ! — that  was  quite  another  pair  of  shoes, 

"  There  was  free  spoleecemen,"  said  she,  beginning  like  a  true 
artist  with  the  strong,  conspicuous  points  of  her  narrative,  "  took 
Daddy  along  like  carrying  a  Guy,  only  the  spoleeceman  he  pictited 
me  up  and  held  me  inside  of  the  skirting  for  Daddy  for  to  kiss  me. 
And  Daddy,  he  says  why  didn't  I  call  out  like  he  told  me  '  Pi-lot ! ' 
so  he  could  hear?  ..." 

"  But  was  Daddy  being  carried  on  a  chair  ? "  The  reference  to  a 
Guy  had  complicated  matters. 

"Not  a  chair  to  set  upon.  A  hospital-barrer.  With  skirtings. 
Yass!  But  I  hadn't  called  out  Pi-lot,  so  Daddy  could  hear.  .  .  ." 
Lizarann's  conscience  torments  her  on  this  point,  which  is  one  her 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  179 

hearer  cares  very  little  about.  He  wants  to  find  out  what  hurt 
Daddy's  leg,  and  the  extent  of  the  damage.  He  waits  a  moment  to 
listen ;  thinks  he  hears  a  silence  in  the  next  room,  as  though  Simon 
Magus  had  vanished  and  left  his  victim  in  peace.  Something  like 
knocking  about  of  furniture  follows.  But  the  drunkard  is  safe 
locked  in.  He  can  do  no  great  harm  for  a  few  minutes  anyhow. 

"  Was  it  an  accident,  or  did  he  tumble  down  of  himself  ? "  he 
asks.  He  knows  the  child  will  understand.  A  mere  fall  on  a  slip- 
pery pavement  would  hardly  rank  as  an  accident  with  her.  An  ac- 
cident, unclassified  otherwise,  almost  implies  a  vehicle,  among  this 
class  of  Londoners. 

"Yass! — an  accident.  The  boy  said  so."  A  self-explanatory 
boy,  the  speaker  seems  to  think.  The  hearer  accepts  him  as  ex- 
plained. But  what  was  the  accident,  and  how  much  was  Daddy 
hurt?  Didn't  the  boy  tell?  Gradually  all  that  Lizarann  has  to 
communicate  is  elicited,  and  Mr.  Taylor  takes  a  cheerful  view  of 
the  outlook. 

"  Then  Daddy's  gone  to  the  Hospital?  They'll  set  Daddy  on  his 
legs  again.  What  does  Daddy  do  for  his  living  ? " 

"  He's  a  Asker.  Askin',  he  does.  Yass ! "  Lizarann's  largo 
dark  eyes,  and  her  gravity,  added  force  to  this.  "  Every  dye,  by 
the  Rilewye  Stytion,  where  I  goes  to  fotch  'im." 

Athelstan  Taylor  gave  a  low  whistle.  "  Oho ! — that's  where  we 
are,  is  it  ? "  He  at  once  recognised  the  little  girl  whose  fame  had 
reached  him  from  the  great  house  at  Royd,  with  which  he  was  of 
course  in  frequent  communication.  "  You're  Lizarann  Coupland, 
then ;  Lady  Arkroyd's  friend  ? " 

"  Yass ! "  said  Lizarann,  nodding.  Not  that  she  was  sure  of  it. 
But  she  knew  there  was  a  Lidy,  come  to  see  Teacher  at  School,  she 
did;  and  she  couldn't  have  been  certain,  off-hand,  that  this  wasn't 
the  Lidy's  nime,  in  the  face  of  the  gentleman's  statement.  So  she 
assented.  She  felt  rather  proud.  Her  daddy  was  well  spoken  of 
among  the  elite  evidently.  She  continued :  "  And  the  boy  said,  he 
did,  .they  could  mike  Daddy's  leg  well  any  day  of  the  week  at  the 
Sospital,  because  they  done  his  Aunt  and  Uncle.  And  a  gentleman 
was  a  corpse  they  done,  out  of  a  shore.  And  Mr.  Parker's  teef  they 
done,  as  good  as  new !  So  they  was  all  singin'!  Yass — they  was!  " 
This  came  in  instalments ;  our  report  is  shortened,  for  convenience. 

Athelstan  Taylor  said  afterwards  to  his  friend:  "I  was  getting 
so  sleepy  by  that  time,  that  I  didn't  above  half  enjoy  the  little 
maid's  hopeful  chatter  about  her  Daddy,  which  of  course  I  con- 
firmed. I  had  to  commit  it  to  memory  to  laugh  at  it  afterwards." 
Indeed,  his  great  strength  and  endurance  had  been  sorely  taxed  by 


180  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  trying  nature  of  his  long  vigil;  mere  sitting  up  all  night  he 
would  have  made  light  of. 

When  Aunt  Stingy  appeared  a  few  minutes  after,  having  been 
employed  in  lighting  the  kitchen  fire  as  projected,  she  found  Lizar- 
ann  still  on  Mr.  Taylor's  knee,  kept  warm  in  the  extemporized 
wrap,  and  filling  in  the  blanks  in  her  narrative,  in  reply  to  his 
cross-questionings.  With  a  curious  lack  of  tact  and  insight,  Mrs. 
Steptoe  immediately  denounced  her  niece's  presumption,  suggesting 
that  the  child  had  taken  the  gentleman  by  storm,  as  it  were;  and 
alleging  that  little  g'yells  ought  to  know  better  how  to  behave  than 
that.  The  gentleman  cut  this  ill-judged  attempt  to  creep  up  his 
sleeve  very  short  indeed. 

"  Now  listen  to  me,  if  you  please,  Mrs.  .  .  .  what's  your  name  ? 
.  .  .  oh — Steptoe.  Mrs.  Steptoe.  I  am  going  at  once  to  get  the 
nearest  doctor  to  see  your  husband.  And  I  think  the  best  thing 
you  can  do  will  be  to  leave  him  quiet  in  the  front  room  till  I  come 
back.  He  won't  take  any  harm.  And  I  hope  when  I  come  back  I 
shall  find  the  little  girl  dressed,  with  a  nice  warm  fire  to  warm  her- 
self at.  I  suppose  you  can't  get  any  breakfast  for  her  yet 
awhile?  .  .  .  Well! — do  what  you  can  in  that  direction.  Yes- 
terday's milk  is  better  than  no  milk."  And  with  a  very  decisive 
refusal  to  take  a  cup  of  tea  at  any  future  time,  on  any  terms,  he 
buttoned  his  coat  tight  round  him,  and  left  the  room.  Lizarann 
heard  the  street  door  open  and  close,  and  then  she  was  left  friend- 
less and  alone  with  a  formidable  aunt.  That  good  woman  stepped 
out  after  the  street  door  closed,  and  listened  a  moment  at  that  of 
the  front  room,  but  finding  all  silent  did  not  open  it.  She  saw 
it  had  been  locked,  as  the  key  had  been  inside  overnight.  Evidently 
her  visitor  had  locked  it. 

She  returned  and  afflicted  Lizarann  by  a  destructive  co-opera- 
tion in  the  gettin'  of  her  frock  on,  a  form  of  help  that  twitched  its 
victim  to  and  fro  under  the  pretext  of  promoting  her  stability; 
that  resented  her  offered  assistance  and  denounced  it  as  henderin' ; 
that  left  her  penalized  by  a  sense  of  wrong  hooks  in  wrong  eyes, 
buttons  adrift  from  their  holes,  and  holes  aghast  at  the  intrusion  of 
strange  buttons.  But  Lizarann  was  used  to  this,  and  discerned  in 
it  the  shortness  of  her  aunt's  temper.  Her  Daddy  he'd  always  said 
poor  Aunty  she  couldn't  help  her  nater,  and  we  must  bottle  up  ac- 
cording. Lizarann  beheld  her  aunt  through  a  halo  of  Jim's  pa- 
tience and  forgiveness. 

Athelstan  Taylor  soon  found  the  doctor  in  Cazenove  Street,  who 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  181 

came  readily  in  answer  to  his  summons.  It  wouldn't  do  to  lose 
sight  of  the  case,  he  said.  The  man,  who  was  quite  well  known 
to  him  as  a  typical  case  of  Alcoholism,  to  the  police  as  an  habitual 
drunkard,  and  to  the  neighbourhood  as  always  the  worse  for  liquor, 
might  very  easily  die  of  collapse  if  he  wasn't  carefully  nourished 
when  the  reaction  came.  He  would  be  much  safer  in  a  Hospital. 
Often  in  cases  of  this  sort,  life  or  death  would  turn  on  an  injection 
of  morphine  on  the  spot.  Heart-failure  might  be  very  rapid.  He 
spoke  as  though  Mr.  Steptoe's  decease  would  be  a  real  calamity. 
Mr.  Taylor,  tramping  beside  him  through  the  snow,  tried  to  shape  a 
thought  that  hung  in  his  mind.  How  if  he  himself,  who  preached 
a  Resurrection  or  Hereafter  that  as  like  as  not  this  scientific  gen- 
tleman did  not  believe  in — how  if  he  was  less  keen  to  preserve  this 
depraved  life,  as  a  chance  to  clean  it  up  a  bit  for  a  wholesomer  de- 
parture later  on,  than  the  doctor  in  his  professional  enthusiasm,  his 
sportsmanlike  eagerness  to  win  in  a  game  of  Therapeutics  against 
Death  ?  He  felt  a  little  ashamed  of  having  thought  more  than  once 
that  the  miserable  victim  of  vice  would  be  "  best  out  of  the  way." 
Out  of  the  way!  .  .  .  where?  And  then,  how  did  he  know  that 
this  consensus  of  all  mortals  to  try  and  save  even  the  most  worth- 
less lives  may  not  be  an  unconscious  tribute  to  the  underlying  sense 
of  immortality  throughout  mankind?  Would  an  honest  belief  in 
extinction  fight  to  preserve  a  life  that  is  a  pain  to  itself  and  a  curse 
to  its  neighbours?  So  thinking,  he  turned  with  his  companion 
into  Tallack  Street.  "  Last  house  on  the  right,  isn't  it  ?  "  said  the 
doctor. 

What  was  that  policeman  doing  in  front  of  the  last  house  on  the 
right?  Looking  about  on  the  snow  as  though  in  search  for  some- 
thing, and  then  stooping  forward  over  the  low  railing  to  examine 
the  window-fastenings.  It  was  all  secure  there  when  Athelstan 
Taylor  came  away.  He  quickened  his  pace,  and  the  doctor  did  so 
too. 

"Anything  wrong,  officer?"    Both  ask  the  question  at  once. 

"  Couldn't  say,  Sir.  Be  so  good  as  not  to  tread  on  these  foot- 
marks. I  want  'em  kept  till  my  relief  comes.  He'll  be  here  in  p. 
few  minutes.  .  .  .  No — the  window's  not  been  tampered  with, 
so  far  as  I  see.  That's  where  it's  so  queer." 

All  three  stand  silent  a  moment.  Then  both  gentlemen  exclaim 
at  once  that  they  see.  The  queerness  is  clear  enough  to  both.  The 
footsteps  on  the  snow  all  point  away  from  the  window,  and  a  glance 
shows  that  there  is  no  corresponding  track  of  an  approach  to  it. 

None  of  the  three  seem  to  think  the  mystery  soluble,  for  the  mo- 
ment, and  mere  speculation  is  useless.  The  policeman  supplies  au 


182  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

additional  fact,  but  does  not  claim  importance  for  it.  The  hasp  of 
the  window  is  visibly  unclosed  through  the  glass.  But — so  the  of- 
ficer testifies — they  don't  shut  'em  to,  as  often  as  not. 

"You  can  open  it  from  outside,"  says  the  parson-gentleman  to 
the  policeman.  "  All  right !  I  was  coming  to  the  house.  I  know 
the  people." 

"  All  right,  officer !  "  says  the  doctor-gentleman.  "  You  know 
me.  Dr.  Ferris,  Cazenove  Street."  And  thus  encouraged  the  con- 
stable easily  throws  up  the  window  from  without.  A  touch  on  the 
shutters,  and  they  open  inwards.  They  reveal  an  empty  room,  and 
the  track  of  the  footsteps  away  from  the  window  is  at  once  ex- 
plained— fully  to  the  two  who  knew  that  a  delirious  man  was  the 
only  tenant  of  the  room,  and  clearly  enough  for  purpose  of  action 
to  the  third,  who  only  sees  that  some  person,  to  whom  the  exclama- 
tion of  both  at  once,  "  He  has  escaped ! "  applied,  has  been  able  to 
close  the  window  behind  him  to  disguise  his  flight,  and  may  by 
now  be  far  away  at  the  end  of  a  long  trail  they  all  start  to  follow, 
running  through  the  snow  as  best  they  may.  It  is  difficult  to  run. 
as  the  drifted  snow  is  nearly  knee-deep  sometimes.  But  here  and 
there  the  wind  has  kept  the  ground  clear,  blowing  it  like  dry  dust. 

The  track  goes  straight  to  the  closing  fence  at  the  street  end,  at  a 
point  the  youthful  marauders  of  Tallack  Street  have  chosen  for  in- 
roads into  the  railway  territory  beyond.  It  is  passable,  for  those 
who  can  climb  a  little,  and  whose  clothes  do  not  mind  nail-rip  or 
paint-stain.  As  the  three  follow  one  another  over  this  obstacle, 
Athelstan  Taylor  and  the  doctor  send  back  a  shouted  word  or  two 
of  reassurance  to  whoever  it  is  that  has  opened  the  house-door  and 
come  out  with  a  cry  of  alarm — woman  or  child  or  both.  They  do 
not  stop  to  see  which,  but  get  on  as  fast  as  possible.  The  track 
ends  for  a  few  yards  where  the  railway  arch  has  made  a  gap  in  the 
snow,  but  it  is  soon  found  on  the  other  side,  and  then  is  easy  to 
follow  over  a  desolation  of  land  ripe  for  building — ripe  for  the  crea- 
tion of  ground-rents — ripe  with  the  deadly  ripeness  we  all  know  so 
well,  of  the  land  that  the  hay  will  never  smell  sweet  upon  again,  the 
land  that  even  now  awaits  interminable  streets  of  dwellings  no  man 
or  woman  of  the  days  to  come  shall  ever  think  of  as  a  home  in  child- 
hood. Easy  to  follow  as  it  lies  clear  in  the  thick  snow  it  has  had 
nil  to  itself,  and  will  have  till  the  road  is  reached  that  leads  to  the 
Refuse  Destroyer,  with  its  two  hundred  feet  of  chimney-shaft,  from 
which  a  black  cloud  is  pouring — presumably  of  refuse  that  has  re- 
fused to  be  destroyed;  or  has  reappeared  after  destruction  in  an 
astral  body,  or  suppose  we  say  disastral — and  the  canal,  and  the 
Breweries,  and  the  Chemical  Bottle  Stout  Works,  and  the  Artificial 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  183 

Food  Works  the  Sewage  Appropriation  Company,  Limited,  aro 
building  down  Snape's  Lane  this  side  of  the  canal-basin. 

The  track  goes  straight  to  the  road,  but  on  reaching  it  swerves 
aside,  baffled  by  a  hedge,  or  the  memory  of  what  was  once  a  hedge, 
whose  function  has  been  reinforced  by  barbed  wire;  probably  the 
last  expiring  effort  of  a  pastoral  age  to  induce  sheep  to  remain  on 
the  land  and  be  tempted  by  the  dirty  grass.  The  swerved  footsteps 
follow  on  to  an  opening  two  sad  stumps  face  one  another  in,  and 
think,  perhaps,  at  times  of  the  days  when  they  were  a  stile,  and 
real  villagers  stepped  over  them,  and  distant  London  was  un- 
known. Then  the  track  is  lost  for  a  space  in  a  maze  of  other  tracks 
of  men  on  their  way  to  brew,  to  bottle  stout  chemically,  to  ap- 
propriate sewage,  that  artificial  food  may  be  stocked,  in  tins,  for  a 
race  with  powers  of  digestion  up  to  date.  Then  is  found  again,  and 
followed  on  to  a  canal-bank  with  Platonic  locks  that  sleep  some- 
times from  day's  end  to  day's  end,  bargeless,  and  dream  of  a  past 
when  railways  were  unknown,  and  they  were  full  of  purpose,  and 
the  world  was  young.  And  then  is  lost  again,  at  a  bridge. 

Stragglers  are  gathering  round,  anxious  to  satisfy  curiosity  about 
the  nature  of  the  search ;  also  anxious  to  impart  information  about 
its  object,  whether  possessed  of  any  or  not.  Willingness  to  further 
the  public  interest,  without  any  qualifications  of  data  to  go  upon,  is 
often  a  serious  hindrance  to  the  end  in  view.  In  this  case  several 
casuals,  who  have  not  seen  a  man  in  his  shirt-sleeves,  without  ne'er 
a  hat  on,  go  by,  are  so  anxious  to  mould  the  particulars  of  some- 
thing else  they  have  seen  into  a  plausible  substitute  for  information 
about  the  said  man,  that  the  necessity  for  hearing  enough  of  their 
evidence  to  reject  it  becomes  an  obstacle  trying  to  the  patience  of 
the  searchers.  It  seems  injudicious  to  snub  a  volunteer  informant 
who  see  a  party  go  along  the  road  in  the  opposite  direction  rather 
better  than  an  hour  ago,  with  a  sack  over  his  head  and  shoulders, 
who  "  might  have  been  a  dorg-fancier,  to  look  at,  in  the  manner  of 
describing  him,"  and  to  tell  him  to  shut  up  if  he  can't  go  any 
nearer  than  that;  not  only  because  this  drastic  treatment  may  dis- 
courage other  informants  who  have  really  something  to  tell,  but 
because,  being  put  on  his  mettle,  he  proceeds  to  adjust  his  evidence 
to  the  facts,  so  far  as  he  can  ascertain  them.  He  removes  the  sack 
from  the  head  of  his  recollection,  makes  it  walk  the  other  way  at 
any  acceptable  time;  won't  undertake,  now  you  ask  so  partic'lar, 
that  it  hadn't  shirt-sleeves,  and  surrenders  the  dog-fancier  in 
favour  of  any  vocation  you  are  inclined  to  put  a  leading  question 
about.  In  like  manner,  a  party  sim'lar  to  you  describe  come 
straight — according  to  other  proffered  testimony — acrost  yarnder 


184  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

open  ground  to  this  very  self-same  spot,  and  so  forrard  over  the 
bridge  to'ards  the  Princess  Charlotte  down  the  lane,  and  went  in 
at  the  bar.  But  the  photographic  likeness  of  this  person  to  any 
description  you  choose  to  give  of  the  man  sought  for  fails  to 
establish  the  identity  of  the  two,  as  he  was  seen  on  the  previous  day, 
maybe  about  dinner-time.  Compromise  is  impossible;  the  in- 
formant stands  committed  to  yesterday,  past  recall. 

But  the  track  on  the  snow  is  lost — that  is  the  one  fact  clear. 
Give  it  up  and  go  back? — is  that  the  only  course  open  to  us?  Not 
when  the  chase  ends  so  close  to  a  canal-lock.  True,  the  footsteps 
do  not  go  to  the  edge,  but  only  because  a  wind-swept  skirting  of 
brick  pavement  is  clear  of  snow.  The  last  one  is  none  so  far  off  the 
stone  curb,  above  the  water.  Look  down  into  the  empty  lock,  and 
think! 

The  parson  and  the  doctor  represent  intelligent  speculation;  the 
policeman,  official  reserve  ready  to  listen  to  information  and  com- 
pare it  with  his  pre-omniscience ;  the  gathering  crowd  of  early  work- 
men, the  uselessness  of  defective  reasoning  powers  brought  to  bear 
on  insoluble  problems. 

After  a  moment  the  parson  speaks  to  the  doctor:  "The  ice  is 
broken  over  there — just  where  the  water  is  running  in." 

"  Are  you  sure  ? "  asks  the  doctor.  "  Isn't  it  only  the  wash  of 
the  water  melting  it  off  ?  But  your  eyesight  is  better  than  mine,  I 
expect" 

"No,  there's  a  broken  edge.  The  water-wash  would  scoop  and 
leave  a  curve." 

"  What  do  you  think  ? "  the  doctor  asks  the  policeman,  who  re- 
plies briefly:  "Gentleman's  right,  perhaps.  Worth  trying,  any- 
how! .  .  .  Now  then,  some  of  you,  idling  round,  I  want  that 
bit  of  ice  broke  up — against  the  lower  gate.  Look  alive  now !  .  .  . 
Yes! — a  couple  of  planks  and  a  short  ladder  and  a  yard  or  so  of 
scaffold -cord.  Get  'em  anywhere  round!  Tm  answerable.  Never 
you  mind  what  anyone  says — just  you  take  'em !  "  And  the  leading 
casuals,  probably  labourers  on  the  building  job  down  the  lane,  are 
off  at  a  trot  to  requisition  planks  and  cords.  But  not  without  estab- 
lishing a  slight  collateral  grievance,  in  the  manner  of  their  kind : 
"  You've  only  got  to  name  what  you  want,  and  we'll  get  it  fast 
enough.  Who's  to  know  what  you're  askin'  for,  exceptin'  you 
speak  ? " 

Athelstan  Taylor's  surmise  of  course  was  that  Uncle  Bob  had 
ended  his  run  by  falling  into  the  lock  at  the  upper  end,  where  the 
ice  was  thin ;  and,  breaking  through  it,  had  passed  below  the  thicker 
ice,  where  he  remained — probably  jammed  against  the  lower  gate, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  185 

which  was  closed.  He  noticed  that  this  conjecture  was  at  once  ac- 
cepted, but  that  no  living  soul  of  all  those  present  referred  to  it  in 
words.  Silence  is  kept  about  it,  but  for  a  word  between  himself  and 
the  doctor,  even  till  after  the  planks  and  cords  and  ladder  have 
come,  and  the  planks  are  laid  athwart  the  sounder  ice  at  the  lower 
gate.  One  man  can  stand  on  them  safely  without  fear  of  its  giv- 
ing— perhaps  two.  But  one  can  break  the  ice  with  a  pick  fast 
enough,  as  soon  as  he  can  get  at  it.  Hand  him  down  a  shovel  to 
clear  the  snow  a  bit! 

The  parson  is  feeling  sick  at  heart  with  his  long  night's  vigil,  and 
as  though  he  could  hardly  face  the  dreadful  end.  He  shrinks  back, 
not  to  see  more  than  he  need.  Then  from  the  depths  of  the  lock 
comes  the  crackling  sound  of  the  ice  that  breaks  beneath  the  pick. 
Then  the  tension  of  the  growing  excitement  as  those  on  the  brink 
watch  for  a  result  they  feel  confident  of. 

"Nothing  there?"  .  .  .  "Nothing  that  side."  .  .  .  "Now 
you  keep  steady  across  with  your  peck — right  you  are ! — across  the 
middle  .  .  .  don't  go  to  sleep!  .  .  .  yes,  now  right  up  in  the 
corner.  .  .  .  Something  there?"  .  .  .  "Ah! — easy  a  minute 

till  I  catch  holt  .    .    .  have  that  cord  ready.  .   .    .     Got  him  ? " 
******* 

"  You  are  quite  certain  nothing  can  be  done  ? " 

"Absolutely  certain.  He  was  ready  for  heart-failure,  without 
being  an  hour  under  the  ice." 

"  Will  you  tell  the  poor  woman,  from  me,  that  I  had  no  choice 
but  to  go?  And  that  poor  baby.  ..." 

"Is  there  a  baby?" 

"Well — little  girl  of  six  then!  Say  I'll  come  at  three  to  take 
her  to  see  her  father  at  the  Hospital.  You're  sure  it's  the  same 
case?" 

"  Not  the  least  doubt.  A  blind  sailor  beggar — there  couldn't  be 
two.  You  know  the  wards  at  St.  Brides  .  .  .  Never  mind — 
you'll  find  out.  .  .  .  What  is  it,  my  good  woman  ? " 

It  is  a  woman  with  a  tale  to  tell.  Briefly,  that  she  looked  out  of 
her  bedroom  window  about  an  hour  and  a  half  since,  and  saw  whnt 
must  have  been  the  unhappy  inebriate  running  across  the  field, 
looking  back,  time  and  again,  as  if  he  see  some  party  follering  of 
him.  Then  he  cojne  to  the  lock,  and  stood  close  over  the  edge — 
back  to,  as  you  might  say.  So  standing,  he  went  wild,  on  the  sud- 
den, and  threw  up  his  arms,  and  there! — he  was  over  in  the  lock, 
afore  you  could  reckin  him  up  like — clear  over!  Both  her  hearers 
are  indignant,  or  perhaps  incredulous  about  the  truth  of  the  story. 
For  if  she  really  saw  this,  why  in  Heaven's  name  did  she  give  no 


186  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

alarm  ? — the  man's  life  might  have  been  saved !  She  expresses  con- 
trition as  for  an  error  of  judgment,  but  no  great  remorse.  She  told 
her  master — meaning  her  husband — who  said  it  was  a  queer  start. 
But  it  was  that  early !  The  exact  bearing  of  this  fact  on  the  mat- 
ter was  far  from  clear. 

"  She'll  have  to  tell  her  tale  before  the  coroner,  anyhow,"  said 
the  doctor,  as  he  showed  his  companion  a  short-cut  into  his  road 
home.  "  Well ! — now  keep  straight  on — you'll  be  in  the  main  road 
in  five  minutes.  I  hope  you'll  get  a  good  breakfast  and  a  good 
sleep  before  you  marry  those  two  sinners.  Good-bye!  Remember, 
straight  on !  " 

For  the  Rev.  Athelstan  had  told  this  gentleman  of  the  binding 
engagement  that  he  had  to  keep  that  morning  as  locum  tenens  at  St. 
Vulgate's.  He  had  with  difficulty  persuaded  a  navvy  to  remedy 
an  omission  in  his  duties  towards  the  mother  of  his  family,  whom 
he  had  never  led  to  the  Altar  of  Hymen;  and  the  said  navvy  had 
consented  to  do  so  this  morning,  and  was  rather  entering  into  the 
fun  of  the  thing.  But  if  the  parson  were  to  fail  in  his  appoint- 
ment, was  it  certain  that  the  delinquent  would  be  brought  to  the 
scratch  a  second  time  ? 

However,  he  had  still  time  for  breakfast  and  rest  before  this  ap- 
pointment was  due.  So  he  walked  briskly  on  through  the  thick 
snow,  sad  at  heart,  but  wonderfully  little  the  worse  physically  for 
his  terrible  experience.  And  as  he  walked  he  shuddered  as  he 
thought  of  the  unhappy  case  of  Alcoholism,  flying  over  the  spotless, 
virgin  snow  from  God  knows  what,  to  his  death.  "  I  suppose 
Simon  Magus  had  got  out,  after  all,  and  was  sharp  on  his  heels," 
said  the  Rev.  Athelstan,  and  then  added:  "  At  any  rate,  I'm  glad  it 
was  me,  not  Gus !  " 


CHAPTER  XV 

HOW  LIZARANN  WAS  TAKEN  TO  MISS  FOSSETT's,  BUT  HAD  A  STITCH  IN 
HER  SIDE,  AND  WASN'T  TO  GO  TO  DADDY  TO-DAY.  HOW  THE  RECTOR 
WENT  TO  JIM  IN  THE  HOSPITAL,  AND  JIM  WAS  DISAPPOINTED  ABOUT 
HIM 

IP  Lizarann  had  had  no  grounds  for  looking  forward  to  a  re- 
appearance of  the  curious  New  Policeman  who  had  rescued  her, 
she  would  have  been  more  on  the  alert  about  the  events  of  the 
previous  night  that  concerned  Uncle  Bob.  But  she  had  no  doubt 
her  rescuer  would  come  back.  And  this  anticipation,  as  well  as  the 
hopeful  tone  in  which  he  had  spoken  of  Daddy's  prospects  at  the 
Hospital,  set  her  mind  quite  at  rest  about  everything  but  the  thing 
which  presented  itself  to  her  merely  as  exaggerated  domesticity. 
It  was  Uncle  Bob,  only  rather  more  so. 

Seen  from  her  point  of  view,  the  events  that  had  preceded  Uncle 
Bob  were  that  Daddy  had  been  in  collision  with  a  Pickford's  Van, 
and  had  suffered,  but  not  murderously,  from  the  accident;  that  he 
had  not  been  able  to  walk,  because  of  his  leg;  and  that  he  had  been 
carried  away  by  well-disposed  officials  to  an  institution  that  pro- 
moted soundness  of  wind  and  limb,  and  had  even  been  known  to 
make  its  beneficiaires  musical.  A  child's  mind  knows  no  propor- 
tion; and  the  last  item,  which  was  really  a  gratuitous  invention  of 
the  boy  whose  name  was  not  Moses,  gained  credence  with  Lizarann 
slowly,  and  ended  by  throwing  every  other  particular  into  the  shade. 
Further,  she  knew  that  Uncle  Bob,  considered  as  an  infliction,  had 
been  worse — for  he  was  to  her  merely  an  endemic  disease  that  in- 
creased or  diminished,  like  gout — and  that  he  had  run  out  in  the 
snow.  Nothing  abnormal  in  that ;  besides,  the  police,  new  and  old, 
had  run  after  him,  to  say  nothing  of  the  doctor-gentleman  from 
the  house  with  "  Surgery "  wrote  up  big,  where  you  could  get  a 
supply  of  medicine  if  you  said  where  you  come  from,  and  took  back 
an  exhausted  bottle  with  a  surprisingly  high  number  on  it,  con- 
sidering its  pretensions.  And  these  events  having  passed  muster 
as  normal,  what  followed  was  only  natural. 

Her  aunt  had  shown  at  first  dispositions  to  join  the  chase,  but 
had  desisted  in  consequence  of  remonstrance  from  neighbours,  who 
had  begun  to  be  aware  that  history  had  been  in  the  making  during 

187 


188  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  night  at  Steptoe's;  he,  though  chronic  the  previous  evening, 
having  become  acute  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  Mrs. 
Hicks  and  Mrs.  Hacker,  and  others,  having  trooped  round  the 
vortex  of  excitement,  had  counselled  Aunt  Stingy  to  remain  where 
she  would  be  of  some  use,  and  not  go  canterin'  over  the  buildin' 
land  with  no  object,  in  the  manner  of  speaking.  Wasn't  three 
plenty  ? 

Jimmy  'Acker,  told  off  to  follow  the  trail  in  the  snow  and  bring 
back  word  if  he  see  'em  coming,  had  come  back  uneasy  and 
evasive,  had  told  contradictory  stories  about  what  he  see,  and  had 
confirmed  the  public  belief  in  the  untrustworthiness  of  boys.  Ques- 
tioned, during  ostracism,  by  his  sister  and  Lizarann,  his  replies  had 
been  mysterious,  and  his  refusal  to  make  them  less  so  unintelligible. 
The  expression,  "Just  you  wait  and  see  if  what  I  told  you  ain't 
k'rect,"  laid  claim  to  having  said  something,  sometime;  and  no  ef- 
fort of  his  hearers'  memory  confirmed  his  having  done  so.  Other 
emissaries  departed  to  get  information,  and  did  not  come  back. 

This  state  of  uncertainty  had  been  ended  by  the  reappearance  of 
the  policeman  and  the  doctor,  who  climbed  back  over  the  fence  fol- 
lowed by  straggling  units  from  among  those  who  had  witnessed 
the  scene  at  the  lock.  Everyone  can  read  something  written  about 
Death  on  the  faces  of  those  who  have  just  seen  him. 

"  Now  which  of  you  women  was  this  man's  wife  ? "  That  was 
what  Lizarann  had  heard  the  policeman — the  old  sort;  she  looked 
in  vain  for  her  glorious  friend — say  to  wifehood  within  hearing. 
Whereupon  Aunt  Stingy  became  on  a  sudden  hysterical,  and  was 
helped,  gasping  and  crying,  into  the  house.  Lizarann  wanted  to  go 
too,  moved  by  pity  for  she  knew  not  what — for  something  folk 
were  speaking  under  their  breath  about  to  one  another,  not  to  her; 
nodding  about,  pointing  about,  to  something  past  or  present,  beyond 
the  railway-arch ;  drawing  morals  about  and  referring  to  their  own 
foresight  about.  Then  she  had  heard  the  voice  of  the  doctor-gentle- 
inan: 

"  Which  of  you  youngsters  is  his  little  girl  ?  .  .  .  Hadn't  got 
a  little  girl,  hadn't  he  ?  .  .  .  Oh  ah ! — of  course  he  hadn't.  .  .  . 
I  should  say — which  is  the  little  girl  whose  dad's  hurt  his  leg  and 
gone  to  the  Hospital?  .  .  .  Ah,  to  be  sure! — Lizarann.  Now, 
Lizarann,  suppose  you  get  your  bonnet  and  wrop  yourself  up  as 
warm  as  you  can  and  come  along  o'  me  to  Teacher  at  the  School, 
just  till  Mr.  Taylor  comes  to  go  to  see  Daddy  with  you.  The  big 
gentleman?  .  .  .  just  him,  and  nobody  else.  Come  along!" 
Which  Lizarann  did,  with  alacrity.  Daddy  was  in  view  again. 

Then  had  come  a  very  pleasant  phase  of  what  had  really  seemed 


1 1   NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  189 

more  a  dream  than  a  reality,  all  along,  to  Lizarann.  She  had 
found  herself  being  fed  and  washed  and  dressed  and  generally  suc- 
coured by  Miss  Fossett,  otherwise  Teacher,  at  her  private  residence 
next  door  to  the  School,  after  the  departure  of  the  doctor-gentle- 
man who  left  her  there.  She  couldn't  for  the  life  of  her  make  out 
whether  it  was  good  news  or  bad  news  he  had  been  telling  Teacher 
under  his  breath.  All  she  knew  was  that  she  was  somehow  ap- 
pointed to  go  to  Daddy  in  the  Hospital,  and  that  nothing  else  iuac- 
tered.  Even  had  she  known  the  tragedy  of  the  morning,  it  would 
only  have  been  the  fact  of  Death  that  would  have  appalled  her — 
not  the  loss  of  the  man  who  died.  Practically,  the  grave  was-  al- 
ready closing  over  the  remains  of  Uncle  Bob,  or  the  chief  part  of 
them.  Decision  on  that  point  scarcely  rests  with  ignorance  though ; 
who  shall  say  that  even  Alcoholism  can  efface  a  soul  ?  Nips  won't, 
however  frequently  took;  a  germ  always  remains.  At  least>  that 
is  our  experience,  or  an  inference  from  it. 

It  is  always  pleasant  to  feel  at  liberty  to  over-indulge  a  child, 
and  Miss  Fossett,  a  good-natured  woman  that  might  have  married — 
that  describes  her — interpreted  something  the  doctor  had  told  her 
about  Daddy  as  a  licence  to  do  so  in  this  case.  So  Lizarann  en- 
joyed herself  thoroughly — may  almost  be  said  to  have  been  pam- 
pered— in  the  interval  between  the  doctor's  departure  and  the  ar- 
rival of  the  Rev.  Athelstan.  When  the  latter  came,  as  promised, 
Miss  Fossett  had  said  something  to  him  with  concern,  under  her 
breath,  and  he  had  replied  in  a  strain  as  of  reassurance,  to  judge 
from  his  tone :  "  Never  you  mind  the  doctor,  Addie.  Like  enough 
he  was  mistaken.  Besides,  he  said  he  thought  they  might  save  it." 
Which,  half-heard  by  Lizarann,  only  left  an  impression  on  her 
mind  of  the  hospital  staff  on  its  knees  hunting  in  the  gutter  for 
poor  Jim's  takings  in  coppers,  spilt  from  his  pocket  last  night 
when  he  met  with  this  accident.  Also  at  the  moment  Lizarann  was 
doing  some  arithmetic  by  herself,  hors  de  concours,  and  honestly 
believed  she  was  conferring  a  real  kindness  on  Teacher  by  adding 
up  rows  of  figures  for  her.  She  would  have  done  them  quicker, 
,  only  she  had  to  stop  to  lick  and  rub  out  each  carried  cipher  after 
writing  in  the  next  one.  Also,  when  she  got  the  values  wrong  in 
an  eight,  which  is  difficult,  she  had  to  rub  it  out  and  do  it  all  over 
again. 

"  Lizarann  says  two  and  two  make  four,  but  fifteen  and  twelve 
don't  make  twenty-seven."  Lizarann  thought  Teacher  said  this 
rather  maliciously.  But  she  was  prompt  in  self -justification. 

"Not  of  theirselves.  Not  till  you  do  them  in  a  sum.  Like 
this.  ..."  And  she  did  it. 


190  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Quite  right,  Lizarann !  Of  course  they  don't.  But  two  and 
two  will  make  four  if  you  leave  'em  alone  ever  so.  Isn't  that  it  ? " 
Thus  the  gentleman — a  sympathetic  soul ! 

"  Yass !  "  And  the  little  woman  felt  that  justice  had  been  done. 
But  she  didn't  know  why  maturity  should  laugh,  as  it  did. 

"  They  may  save  it,  of  course,"  Miss  Fossett  continued.  "  I 
don't  see  what's  to  be  gained  by  taking  the  child  to  the  Hospital, 
myself.  Only  make  her  miserable!  It  won't  be  half  as  bad  if  it's 
a  wooden  leg  and  he's  up  and  well,  as  seeing  him  in  a  hospital 
ward.  Besides,  Dr.  Ferris  said  he  couldn't  be  certain  they'd  let  you 
see  him." 

"  I  fancy  they  would.  I  know  a  man  there  who  would  manage 
it,  regular  hours  or  no ! " 

"  I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean  it  might  not  be  safe  for  the  man 
himself.  Just  think! — suppose  they  have  had  to  amputate  both." 
Of  course  Lizarann  heard  none  of  this.  They  were  in  the  next 
room,  having  left  her  engaged  in  arithmetic. 

"  Yes — he  may  be  betwixt  life  and  death.  After  all,  we  know 
nothing.  When  did  Dr.  Ferris  say  he  would  be  at  the  Hospital? 
Is  that  the  child  coughing  ?  " 

"  Is  that  you  coughing,  Lizarann  ? "  Teacher  raised  her  voice 
to  ask,  and  Lizarann  replied  that  she  had  "  a  stiss "  in  her  side 
whenever  she  licked  the  slite.  She  licked  it  to  try,  and  the  ex- 
periment was  crowned  with  success.  She  then  tried  to  readjust 
something  out  of  gear  inside  her  by  short  coughs  and  wriggles. 
This  did  not  seem  so  successful.  Teacher  lowered  her  voice  again : 
"  Mucous  membrane,"  said  she,  "  or  muscular." 

"  Very  likely.  She's  had  a  deal  of  exposure  though,  snow  and  all. 
Let's  keep  our  eyes  on  her."  But  Lizarann  didn't  cough  again, 
that  time. 

Nevertheless  Miss  Fossett  seemed  not  quite  easy  in  her  mind 
about  that  cough,  and  when  Mr.  Taylor  remarked  that  he  ought 
to  be  thinking  about  starting,  if  we  were  to  get  to  the  Hospital  by 
four  o'clock,  she  said — only  she  pretended  it  was  quite  a  sudden 
idea  of  hers — that  if  she  spoke  the  truth  she  would  really  be  much 
happier  to  have  the  child  not  go  out  of  doors  in  all  this  terrible  cold 
and  slush.  For  it  was  a  thaw,  and  an  enthusiastic  one;  and,  you 
see,  Miss  Fossett  had  come  by  her  knowledge  of  mucous  membranes 
and  so  forth  in  a  sad  curriculum  of  two  courses;  one  of  nurs- 
ing a  sister  through  phthisis  to  death;  and  the  other,  which  was 
incomplete,  of  doing  the  like  at  intervals  for  a  brother,  with 
only  a  poor  hope  that  it  would  end  otherwise.  So  she  knew  all 
about  it. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  191 

"  I  really  should  feel  easier,  Yorick,"  she  repeated.  And  Lizar- 
ann  looked  up  from  the  slate  to  see  who  else  was  in  the  room,  that 
Teacher  could  be  speaking  to.  But  seeing  no  one,  and  being  a 
sharp  little  girl,  she  perceived  that  it  was  her  friend  the  gentleman 
that  was  addressed.  Only,  of  course,  she  couldn't  guess  that  it  was 
a  sort  of  nickname,  given,  years  ago,  to  her  brother's  schoolfellow  by 
her  friend  the  lady. 

"  /  should,  a  good  deal.  It's  not  the  right  sort  of  day  at  all  for 
little  girls  with  coughs.  How  shall  we  console  her? " 

"  You  must." 

"  I  suppose  I  shall  have  to,  Addie.  I  always  have  to  do  all  the 
dirty  work."  This  metaphor  distracted  Lizarann's  attention  from 
two  uneven  numbers,  one  of  which  had  to  be  took  off  the  other  and 
wouldn't  come  out  right.  Did  the  New  Police  scrub  underneath 
the  beds,  clear  the  flues  of  sut,  scour  out  the  sink,  and  so  on?  Im- 
possible !  He  went  on :  "  Look  here,  Lizarann !  You're  a  good 
little  girl,  aren't  you  ? " 

"Yass!" 

"  And  you're  not  going  to  cry — that's  about  it,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Ye-e-e — yass !  "  She  is  not  quite  so  confident  about  this,  but 
will  conciliate  public  opinion  to  the  best  of  her  ability. 

"  Well,  Lizarann,  the  doctor  says  we  mustn't  see  Daddy  till — till 
a  day  or  two."  The  small  face  clouds  over  pitifully.  The  disap- 
pointment is  bitter.  But  Lizarann  won't  cry — well! — not  yet,  any- 
how. Yorick  continues :  "  I  shall  go  to  the  Sospital  to  hear  about 
Daddy,  and  come  back  and  tell.  But  you  mustn't  go  yet,  because  it 
would  hurt  Daddy."  He  conceals  his  consciousness  of  the  back- 
ground of  tears  to  the  child's  Spartan  resolution. 

"  You'll  see  it  will  come,  though,"  says  Miss  Fossett,  saying  good- 
bye at  the  street-door.  "  She'll  have  a  good  cry  about  it  when 
you're  gone.  .  .  .  But  oh  dear! — what  a  lot  of  stories  you  have 
told  that  child,  Yorick." 

"  Of  course  I  did.  You  put  it  on  me,  Addie,  and  then  you  sneak 
out !  7  call  it  mean.  But  oh  dear ! — what  a  lot  of  stories  one  does 
have  to  tell  children !  " 

"  You  never  tell  them  stories  about  anything  you  think  serious. 
I  know  you  don't" 

"  Yes,  I  do.  I  tell  them  as  matter  of  knowledge  what  I  know  to 
be  only  matter  of  belief.  They  wouldn't  believe  it  if  I  didn't  say  I 
knew  it." 

"But  you  believe  it?" 

"I  do.  But  I  don't  know  it.  Good-bye,  Addie!  I  shall  keep 
my  promise  about  the  Hospital,  though,  and  bring  the  news  back. 


192  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Cosset  over  the  little  woman  and  console  her."  Which  Teacher 
really  did  to  the  best  of  her  ability,  but  the  fact  is  that  though 
Lizarann  was  brave,  she  was  inconsolable.  And — what  was  bit- 
terest of  all — she  felt  that  faith  had  been  broken  with  her;  which, 
coming  home  too  late  to  Miss  Fossett,  made  her  think  that  it  might 
have  been  better  to  tell  a  child  of  Lizarann's  character  the  real  rea- 
son why  she  wasn't  to  go  to  Daddy.  It  was  a  doubtful  point, 
though.  Besides,  it  was  far  from  certain,  after  all,  that  she  could 
have  seen  Daddy  if  she  had  been  taken  to  the  Hospital.  It  would 
have  been  the  worst  result  of  all  to  fail  in  that,  and  have  all  the 
exposure  for  nothing. 

So  the  Rev.  Athelstan — or  Yorick — certainly  thought,  as  he 
started  to  walk  to  St.  Brides,  meaning  to  avail  himself  of  a  town- 
ward-bound  hansom  if  one  should  overtake  him  before  he  got  to 
the  tram.  Omnibuses  were  all  full,  apparently,  inside  and  out;  and 
the  opportunity  of  enjoying  a  rapid  thaw  was  open  to  those  who 
had  for  three  weeks  been  praying  for  one.  Streets  overwhelmed 
with  insufferable  slush,  and  what  was  beautiful  clean  snow  only 
a  few  hours  since  turned  to  torrents  of  an  inkiness  defying  ex- 
planation. Roads  that  made  even  the  sufferer  by  the  slides  we  so 
enjoyed  the  making  of  in  the  early  morning  wish  that  he,  too,  was 
on  our  side,  and  could  benefit  by  them,  and  knock  double-knocks 
on  them  and  never  tumble.  And  see  them  now,  turned  to  mere  ill- 
mixed  morass — floating  pea-soup  ankle-deep!  Scavengers'  carts 
that  seemed  to  spill  more  than  they  removed,  and  persons  of  low 
ideals  of  energy  losing  sight  of  the  objects  for  whose  attainment 
they  had  been  entrusted  with  brooms  and  rakes,  and  contented  to 
do  nothing  particular  with  them,  in  rows.  Malignant  persons  on 
roof-tops  discharging  wicked  accumulations  on  unsuspecting  heads, 
and  shouting  out  "  Be-low !  "  at  the  moment  of  impact.  Butchers' 
carts  coming  as  close  to  you  as  possible,  to  splash  mud  in  your 
mouth  and  inside  your  collar,  and  reaching  the  horizon  long  before 
you  become  articulate  to  curse  them.  And  then  that  saddest  of  all 
depressing  sights,  the  skater  who  has  been  warned  off  the  ice  that 
won't  be  dangerous  for  another  hour  at  least,  and  is  going  home 
swinging  his  skates  and  doubting  the  benevolence  of  his  Maker. 

So  onward,  through  abating  suburb  and  increasing  town,  to  the 
zone  of  the  Effectual.  Of  impatient  carts  that  won't  wait  for  the 
snow  to  thaw,  but  snap  it  up  and  carry  it  away  without  offering  to 
account  for  their  conduct;  of  mowing-machines  fitted  with  Brob- 
dingnag  revolving  hair-brushes  that  will  have  to  be  washed  now  to 
be  put  to  their  proper  use  again,  after  sweeping  up  all  that  equiv- 
ocal mess  parallel  with  the  kerbstone;  of  turncocks  looking  happy 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  193 

from  human  appreciation  in  great  force,  and  alone  able  to  cope 
with  obstructions  or  relaxations  in  the  bowels  of  the  earth  whose 
nature  we  outsiders  can  only  dimly  guess  at.  So  travelling  on- 
ward, on  foot  and  by  tram,  the  Rev.  Athelstan  arrived  at  his 
destination,  and  slipping  the  fare  he  had  provided  for  the  cab  he 
had  discarded  into  the  contribution-box  at  the  gate,  entered  St. 
Brides  Hospital. 

"  I  didn't  know  you  were  in  these  parts,  Taylor,"  said  his  friend, 
the  House  Surgeon.  "  Haven't  seen  you  for  a  century.  .  .  . 
Yes! — I  know  I  am  right.  It's  two  years  next  Lady  Day.  How's 
the  family?  How's  Miss  Caldecott?  ...  all  right,  are  they? 
That's  well.  Now  let's  have  a  look  at  you.  Turn  round  to  the 
light.  .  .  ." 

« I'm  all  right" 

"  Didn't  say  you  weren't.  Let's  have  a  look !  Turn  well  round 
and  show  yourself  .  .  .  h'm !  " 

«  Well !— what's  the  matter  ?  " 

"  I  thought  as  much !  You've  been  dissipating,  my  man.  Your 
sort  of  dissipation!  What  was  it  this  time?  You've  been  up  all 
night,  my  good  sir !  It's  no  use  your  trying  to  deceive  me." 

" '  I  will  not  deceive  you,  my  sweet ! ' '  Mr.  Taylor  quoted  Mrs. 
Gamp,  and  was  understood.  "  I  chanced  upon  a  bad  case  of 
delirium  tremens  threatening  its  lawful  wife  with  a  knife,  and  I 
stayed  to  see  it  out.  Poor  fellow !  " 

"H'm— why  poor  fellow?" 

"  Because  I  locked  him  up  and  went  for  the  doctor  round  the 
corner.  He  said  he  knew  you.  Man  of  the  name  of  Ferris.  Good 
sort  of  little  chap.  ..." 

"  I  know  him.  Saw  him  yesterday — came  to  see  a  patient  here. 
Well ! — what  did  he  say  to  your  man  ? " 

"  He  never  saw  him  alive.  While  I  was  away  the  poor  fellow 
escaped  out  of  the  room,  ran  a  mile  and  a  half  through  the  snow, 
and  pitched  himself  into  a  canal-lock.  .  .  .  Oh  yes! — he  was 
fished  out  dead  from  under  the  ice.  .  .  ." 

"  Rather  a  good  job,  I  should  think.  .  .  .  However,  perhaps  I 
oughtn't  to  say  that.  ..." 

"  Glad  to  hear  you  say  so,  Crumpton !    It  sounds  hopeful." 

"  I  didn't  mean  that  way.  I  meant  he  might  have  been  an  in- 
teresting case.  Anyhow,  there's  an  end  of  him!" 

"  I  wish  I  could  think  that.  But  suppose  I  tell  you  what  brings 
me  here  now:  we  can  quarrel  about  the  human  soul  after.  I  want 
to  hear  about  a  man  that  was  brought  in  yesterday  night,  a  blind 
sailor-beggar  that  was  run  over.  Have  you  seen  him  ? " 


194  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Rather !  I  helped  to  get  his  leg  off,  just  above  the  knee.  A 
very  good  case — a  very  good  case !  " 

"  What  does  that  mean ! — a  very  good  case  ? " 

"Means  that  if  the  limb  hadn't  been  taken  off  on  the  nail, 
septic  poisoning  might  have  set  in — yes ! — already ! — By  the  merest 
chance  Brantock  was  here  when  he  was  brought  in — he's  our  visit- 
ing surgeon,  you  know — and  he  operated  immediately.  .  .  .  Save 
it?  Not  a  chance — arteries  all  torn — circulation  stopped — nothing 
for  it  but  the  knife!  The  other  leg  we  may  save.  He  has  a 
splendid  constitution.  Couldn't  have  kept  him  so  long  under 
chloroform  else." 

"The  other  leg?" 

"  Compound  comminuted  fracture  of  tibia  and  fibula,  with  ex- 
tensive laceration  of  soft  parts.  Much  extravasation.  But  vitality 
retained.  Oh  yes ! — we  may  save  that  one.  It's  in  plaster  of  Paris. 
He  was  removed  into  the  surgical  ward  an  hour  ago.  Do  you  want 
to  see  him? — he  can't  talk,  I  fancy,  and  he'd  better  not  try.  He's 
had  a  good  deal  of  opium  to  allay  pain,  you  see." 

"May  I  see  him?  I  should  like  to  say  I  have  to  his  little  girl. 
Poor  child !  The  delirium  tremens  case  was  her  uncle,  and  she  has 
no  mother.  She's  the  poor  chap's  only  child." 

The  House  Surgeon  put  a  book  he  had  been  looking  into  as  he 
talked,  inside  a  desk  and  locked  it;  wrote  with  extreme  rapidity  on 
half  a  sheet  of  note-paper  as  people  write  on  the  stage;  handed  it 
to  a  chubby  nurse  who  seemed  to  have  been  indulging  optimism 
while  waiting  for  it;  remarked  to  her,  "That's  three  hundred  and 
forty-nine.  I'll  see  about  the  other  presently;"  and  said  to  the 
Rev.  Athelstan,  briefly,  "  Come  along !  " 

Poor  Jim  was  worse  now,  as  far  as  his  own  feelings  went,  than 
when  he  spoke  to  Lizarann  off  of  the  hospital-barrer.  Then  he  was, 
in  his  own  eyes,  a  chap  that  had  been  knocked  over  and  come  by 
some  damage  to  his  legs,  which  a  week  in  hospital  would  set  right. 
Pain  enough ! — ah,  to  be  sure ! — and  what  might  you  expect  ?  Not 
for  to  lie  up  in  cotton-wool  all  the  days  of  your  life.  As  a  Spartan, 
and  as  against  pain,  with  the  normal  courage  of  his  healthy  hours 
upon  him,  Jim  was  matchless.  Add  to  that,  that  when  he  said 
those  few  words  to  his  little  lass,  all  the  pain  was  as  nothing  in  it- 
self, measured  against  the  need  that  she  should  not  know  it. 

It  was  that  nasty  suffocating  stuff  that  knocked  all  the  heart 
out  of  a  man,  getting  at  his  innards  and  stopping  his  clock.  For 
when  the  time  came  to  shift  Jim  from  the  couch  he  was  first  laid 
on  to  the  operating-table,  and  to  place  him  under  chloroform  as  a 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  195 

preliminary,  he  was  conscious  enough  of  much  that  was  going  on — 
had  drawn  his  own  inferences  from  the  rapid  undertone  of  con- 
sultation ending  in  a  raised  voice :  "  Perfectly  useless  to  try  for  the 
left.  May  save  the  right !  "  In  that  instant  he  gave  no  thought  to 
his  own  share  in  the  matter;  all  he  could  think  of  was  the  coming 
of  the  knowledge  to  his  child  that  her  Daddy  was  legless  as  well  as 
eyeless.  Three  things  made  up  his  universe — his  little  lass,  a 
crushed  and  spoiled  thing  on  a  couch,  and  that  mysterious  thing, 
Jim's  Self,  independent  of  both,  but  mad  with  anxiety  for  the 
former — until  the  chloroform  came  and  made  all  three  things 
Nothing. 

However,  Jim  never  knew  he  was  Nothing,  because  he  had  no 
sooner  swallowed  the  nasty  stuff  into  his  lungs  than  he  was  feeling 
very  bad,  and  sick-like,  on  a  bed  he  had  never  been  moved  to  at  all, 
to  his  very  certain  knowledge.  And  he  was  able  to  guess,  although 
he  could  not  move  his  limbs  to  test  it,  that  he  was  in  the  form  in 
which  he  was  to  fossilize.  Then,  as  the  slow  rally  of  a  splendid 
constitution  against  the  shock  began,  there  grew  with  it  an  intense 
longing  to  know  what  manner  of  figure  he  was  going  to  cut  when 
reinstated.  Would  it  be  one  wooden  leg  or  two  wooden  legs? 
Would  he  be  able  to  walk  at  all  ?  Would  he,  in  short,  be  in  trim  to 
persuade  his  little  lass  that  he  was  on  the  whole  rather  better  off 
than  before  his  accident?  He  really  thought  of  nothing  else  when 
awake.  But  he  chiefly  slept,  rousing  himself  for  dexterous  doses  of 
nourishment  at  short  intervals.  And  when  he  slept,  he  dreamed, 
as  folk  dream  whose  pain  opium  has  half  quenched. 

He  would  have  done  very  well  in  his  dreams  if  he  could  only 
have  had  them  to  himself,  and  been  free  from  an  awful  something 
that  ran  through  them  all.  Whereof  the  only  certainty  was  that  it 
was  always  the  same,  and  a  curse.  Preferably,  as  to  form,  it  was 
cubic  and  immovable,  but  of  hideous  weight.  But  then,  it  was  by 
no  means  certain  that  it  was  not  a  continuous  sound,  a  sustained 
hoot  of  appalling  power  and  persistency  that  struck  terror  to  the 
heart,  and  jarred  the  brain.  Or  was  it  a  wild  beast,  that  kept  the 
ship's  crew  from  going  ashore?  Or  an  evil  fire  Jim  was  hard  at 
work  to  crawl  away  from,  but  could  not,  seeing  that  it  could  follow 
him  on  wheels  ?  Or,  hardest  to  describe  of  all — when  he  woke  from 
his  dream  to  recognize  a  fact  he  had  recognized  fifty  times  use- 
lessly, that  it  was  merely  his  pain  and  nothing  else — was  it  a 
strange  concerted  action  of  malignant  battalions,  always  coming 
nearer,  never  in  sight?  It  made  him  sick  to  know  that  it  was  each 
and  all  of  the  others,  just  the  same.  Now  if  he  could  only  have 
enjoyed  his  dreams — for,  look  you,  he  could  see  in  his  dreams, 


190  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

plain — he  wouldn't  have  minded  the  pain,  if  he  could  only  have 
kept  it  square  and  intelligible.  It  was  just  the  confusion  that 
made  him  so  hot  and  dry,  so  unable  to  get  properly  range. 

For  instance,  there  was  a  dream  of  eight  years  back  with  Dolly 
in  it.  Dolly  was  Lizarann's  mother,  and  the  reason  Lizarann  was 
not  called  Dolly  was  that  Aunt  Stingy  had  always  thought  it  such 
a  selly  name,  and  it  had  appeared  to  Jim  that  it  couldn't  much  mat- 
ter what  anything  so  small  was  called.  Its  size  was  all  he  knew  of 
it,  and  a  milky  flavour,  and  some  squeaks.  And  Jim  was  in  the 
dark,  and  Dolly  in  her  grave,  and  nothing  mattered.  • 

Jim  was  in  the  dark  now,  with  a  vengeance;  but  he  could  dream 
Dolly  out  of  her  grave,  and  did  it,  in  this  dream.  It  was  a  dream 
of  the  day  he  met  her,  when  he  came  off  his  first  voyage,  a  mere 
boy,  and  a  perfect  stranger  to  her.  There  was  the  bar  he  and  his 
mates  off  the  Per  a  had  trooped  into  for  refreshment,  just  paid  off 
and  feeling  good,  with  money  in  their  pockets.  There  were  the 
square  bottles  with  names  on  the  glass,  and  the  round  ones  all  over 
labels,  and  the  pump-handles  in  a  row  that  Dolly's  red-faced  cousin 
Jane,  the  barmaid,  was  in  the  confidence  of,  but  which  everyone 
else  would  have  pulled  wrong.  There,  too,  was  the  girl  that  came 
in  behind  the  bar  and  berthed  up  alongside  the  red-faced  cousin, 
just  as  Murtagh  O'Rourke  called  back  to  him  through  the  swing- 
door,  "  We're  lavin'  ye  behind,  James,  me  boy,"  and  vanished.  And 
the  girl  was  Dolly — Dolly  herself.  Jim  didn't  know  in  his  dream 
that  he  had  married  Dolly  since,  and  that  she  was  dead — not  he! 
It  was  all  new  and  young  again,  and  in  a  moment  he  would  hear 
Dolly  say  what  she  did  then,  when  after  some  chat — during  which 
the  eyes  of  each  saw  the  other  solely,  Dolly's  flinchingly,  Jim's 
greedily — the  red  face  was  called  away  and  left  them.  Yes! — he 
knew  what  she  would  say,  "  You  never  daren't  come  across  to  me," 
and  that  he  in  defiance  of  all  Law  and  Order  would  be  over  that  bar 
like  a  shot,  and  then  would  be  driven  forth  by  the  righteous  rage 
of  the  returning  barmaid,  with  the  remains  of  a  kiss  on  his  lips,  the 
spoil  of  war  in  this  audacious  enterprise.  And  all  the  sequel  of  the 
story — how  Dolly  ran  after  him  to  say  he  might  come  back,  under 
reserves;  and  the  lightning  speed  of  their  unsophisticated  court- 
ship, under  none — all  this  he  knew  in  the  dream  beforehand,  but 
did  not  wonder  why  he  knew  it — took  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 

It  never  came  off,  though,  for  the  dream  never  got  as  far  as  the 
kiss,  to  Jim's  bitter  disappointment.  Jane,  the  cousin,  instead  of 
clearing  out  and  leaving  the  introduction  to  nature,  swelled  and 
l>ecame  redder  still  and  very  hot,  and  ended  inexplicably  by  becom- 
ing the  pain  that  had  passed  through  so  many  vicissitudes.  Where- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  197 

upon  Jim  was  awake  in  the  dark,  somewhere.  And  a  man's  voice, 
one  good  to  hear,  was  saying,  "  I'll  sit  down  by  him  and  wait  till  he 
wakes,  nurse.  I  promised  little  Lizarann  I  would  see  him." 

"  That's  my  little  lass ! "  said  Jim  faintly.  And  the  nurse  said, 
"I  thought  I  heard  him  speak."  Then  Jim  felt  that  a  big  man 
came  and  sat  beside  him,  who  asked  him  what  he  had  said.  So  he 
repeated,  "  The  name  of  my  little  lass  at  home,  master,"  and  then 
had  said  all  he  could,  and  went  off  again  in  a  drowze,  and  was  far 
away  in  a  new  dream  in  two  seconds.  In  perhaps  five  he  woke 
again  with  a  start  and  said:  "Have  ye  been  here  long,  master?" 
But  his  mind  must  have  travelled  quick  from  the  dream  he  was  in, 
and  his  place  in  it.  For  he  had  to  come  back  to  bed  No.  146  at  St. 
Brides  Hospital  from  Singapore — from  the  hold  of  a  ship  a  Malay 
sailor  had  hidden  himself  in,  after  running  amuck  through  the 
decks,  wounding  right  and  left.  And  Jim  and  Ananias  Driscoll, 
the  second  mate,  were  the  only  men  who  would  dare  to  ferret  him 
out  in  the  dark,  with  a  horn  lantern  and  loaded  revolvers,  to  use 
in  earnest  if  need  was.  And,  mind  you ! — the  fugitive  might  have 
put  fire  to  the  ship,  as  lief  as  not,  except  they  caught  him.  Now 
the  bilge  in  this  ship,  or  something  broke  out  of  a  cask  in  the  hold, 
had  a  powerful  bad  smell  with  it,  that  had  a  mortal  strange  effect 
on  your  legs.  And  when  Jim  said  so  to  Driscoll,  a  voice  came  that 
was  not  Driscoll's,  and  Jim  became  aware  that  he  was  somehow  in 
a  trap,  and  woke  just  in  time  to  escape  it.  But  the  smell  of  that 
bilge  was  the  pain  of  Jim's  foot;  for  the  foot  was  there  still,  for  all 
it  had  been  cut  off  and  carried  away  in  a  pail.  And  the  voice  that 
had  seemed  Driscoll's,  which  was  quite  an  unnatural  one  for  a 
sailor  with  earrings,  and  a  crucifix  tattooed  on  his  chest,  was 
identified  half-way  by  Jim's  waking  sense,  and  Singapore  had 
melted. 

"  Scarcely  a  minute,"  said  the  man  who  sat  beside  him,  complet- 
ing Driscoll's  speech.  Which  seemed  incredible  to  Jim,  after  that 
affair  at  Singapore.  But  he  let  it  pass,  the  more  so  that  at  that 
moment  the  nurse  brought  him  something  in  a  cup,  which  made 
him  feel  better. 

"You  was  so  good  as  to  mention,  master  .    .    ." 

"  Your  little  girl  ?  Yes — I  saw  her,  an  hour  since.  .  .  .  Look ! 
— I'll  put  my  ear  down,  close.  Needn't  try  to  raise  your  voice!" 
For  Jim  had  something  he  wanted  to  say  badly. 

"  You'll  not  be  mentioning  any  matters  to  my  little  lass,  sir,"  said 
he  slowly.  And  then,  as  though  he  felt  his  words  were  a  little  ob- 
scure :  "  You  might  chance  to  be  saying  something  regarding  of  the 
matter  of  my  fut.  Ye  see,  master,  a  young  child  don't  take  these- 


198  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

like  things  as  easy  as  we  do,  and  my  little  lass's  heart  will  be  just 
abroke  about  her  Daddy's  fut.  I'd  take  it  very  kind  of  ye  if  ye'd 
make  any  sart  of  a  bit  of  contrivance  like,  only  for  a  short  spell  o' 
deception,  just  till  I  get  the  heart  in  me  to  make  a  game  of  it  all. 
It's  the  chloroform  done  it.  A  fair  casuality  don't  knock  all  the 
heart  out  of  a  man.  ..." 

"  Your  little  girl  will  have  to  know  about  it  in  the  end." 

"Ah! — in  the  end — yes!  But  then  ...  a  wooden  leg  I  See 
the  difference!  Why,  I  can  most  hear  the  lass  laughing  at  it." 
Jim  paused  a  few  seconds  to  enjoy  Lizarann's  imagined  hilarity, 
then  added :  "  Ye'll  keep  it  snug  about  my  fut,  master  ?  A  stump's 
a  stump,  ye  know." 

"  She  shan't  be  told  any  particulars  yet,  Coupland.  Don't  try 
yourself  talking  too  much."  For  Jim's  long  speech  has  made  his 
breath  come  short,  and  his  last  words  are  almost  inaudible.  He 
siibmits  to  listening.  "  The  doctor  has  told  me  all  about  the  acci- 
dent. You'll  have  to  have  a  wooden  leg.  Let  me  tell  you  about 
Lizarann."  The  way  the  speaker,  whoever  he  is,  accents  the  child's 
name,  makes  a  family  friend  of  him  at  once.  Jim,  with  a  vague 
picture  in  his  mind  of  a  sort  of  guardsman  with  quiet  manners, 
moves  his  own  big  right  hand,  hot  and  weak  now,  as  it  lies  on  the 
coverlid.  It  is  taken  by  another  as  big  and  the  image  of  the 
guardsman  is  confirmed.  Its  voice  suits  the  hand,  and  continues: 
"  We  thought  it  best  for  her  not  to  come — Miss  Fossett  and  I  did. 
You  know  Miss  Fossett,  at  the  National  School." 

u  Sure !  "  Jim's  intonation  acknowledges  Miss  Fossett,  with  ap- 
proval in  it.  Athelstan  Taylor  had  made  up  his  mind  how  much 
it  would  be  safe  to  tell  of  last  night's  work,  so  he  continued : 

"  Your  little  maid  and  I  made  friends  early  this  morning.  I  was 
passing  by  your  house,  and  she  came  running  out.  Her  uncle  had 
been  drinking,  and  his  behaviour  had  frightened  her.  .  .  . 
What's  that?"  He  stoops  down  again  to  hear,  and  Jim  tries  for 
clearer  speech: 

"The  Devil  he'll  take  Bob  Steptoe  one  of  these  odd-come- 
shortlies,  or  I'm  a  liar.  Only  I  wish  he'd  .  .  ." 

"Wish  he'd  what?" 

"  Be  alive  about  it — look  a  bit  smarter  I  What  was  his  game  this 
time,  master  ?  " 

"He  was  drunk  and  violent,  and  I  had  to  control  him.  He's 
quiet  now.  I'll  tell  you  more,  Coupland,  when  you  are  stronger." 

"Very  right,  sir!" 

"I'll  tell  you  now  about  Lizarann.  I  carried  her  off  to  Miss 
Fossett's — with  her  aunt's  consent,  of  course.  The  poor  little 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  199 

woman  had  had  a  bad  time,  you  see.  She  wanted  consolation  badly 
after  your  accident,  and  not  being  able  to  come  to  you.  And  her 
aunt's  a  good  woman,  but  ..." 

"  She  ain't  that  sort  of  good  woman  .    .   .  t'other  sort ! " 

"  Well,  perhaps !  Anyhow,  I  made  her  wrap  Lizarann  up,  and 
trotted  her  off  to  the  School.  Miss  Fossett's  got  her  there  now,  and 
she's  in  good  hands.  ..." 

"  You  mustn't  spin  it  out  too  long,  Taylor.'*  Thus  the  Doctor's 
voice,  as  his  footsteps  stop  by  the  bed-end.  He  comes  to  the  other 
side  of  the  bed,  and  lays  his  finger  on  the  near  pulse.  "Mag- 
nificent constitution !  Everything  in  his  favour !  Splendid  case — 
pity  to  spoil  it !  Give  you  seven  minutes  more  by  the  clock.  Look  in 
to  say  good-bye  as  you  go."  He  is  gone,  and  Jim  is  conscious  of 
the  slight  rustle  of  a  nurse,  on  the  watch  to  pounce,  hard  by. 

"  I  must  tell  you  what  I  came  for,  Coupland.  Of  course  I  wanted 
to  find  how  you  were,  and  take  back  word  to  Lizarann."  Mr.  Tay- 
lor has  to  speak  quickly.  "  But  I  wanted  to  ask  something  of  you." 

"  Give  it  a  name,  master !  " 

"  I  wanted  to  ask  your  consent  to  our  keeping  her — I  should  say 
to  Miss  Fossett  keeping  her — at  the  School  till  you  are  about  again. 
She  shall  be  well  cared  for.  I  know  I  am  asking  you  to  trust  .  .  ." 
He  stopped;  Jim's  lips  were  moving. 

"  You're  the  School-lady's  brother,  belike?  " 

"  Not  quite,  but  that  sort  of  thing !  Her  brother  and  I  were  at 
College  together.  He  is  doing  my  work  in  the  country,  and  I  am 
doing  his  at  St.  Vulgate's  at  Clapham." 

"  That  parson-gentleman — he'd  be  her  brother.  Him  I  heard 
cough  ? "  For  the  brother  and  sister,  interested  in  Lizarann,  had 
visited  Tallack  Street,  and  interviewed  Jim. 

"  Him  you  heard  cough.     That's  it !  " 

"  But  he  can't  do  no  work,  poor  chap ! — not  work  in  the  country." 

"  My  work  in  the  country  is  the  same  as  his  in  London.  Only 
not  so  hard.  And  the  country  air  does  his  cough  good." 

"  Oh,  master ! — ye  never  mean  to  say  you're  a  parson ! "  Jim's 
voice  rises  with  the  poignancy  of  his  disappointment.  To  him, 
every  cleric  is  the  Rev.  Wilkinson  Wilkins,  the  spiritual  adviser  of 
Aunt  Stingy. 

"I'm  not  a  very  bad  one,  Coupland.  At  least,  I  hope  not" 
There  is  humility  in  the  speaker's  tone,  and  recognition  of  the  ag- 
gressive and  objectionable  character  of  Cures  of  Souls,  but  a  germ 
of  a  good-humoured  laugh  buried  in  it.  The  seven  minutes  are 
near  their  end,  and  the  nurse,  considered  as  a  rustle,  is  increasing. 
She  means  action  in  a  moment. 


200  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  I'll  be  your  bail  for  that,  master."  But  Jim  cannot  quite  con- 
ceal his  disappointment.  He  had  formed  such  a  high  ideal  of  his 
visitor.  Still,  he  can  and  does  show  his  faith  in  him  by  spending 
the  rest  of  his  available  speech-strength  on  a  few  words  of  gratitude 
to  Lizarann's  protectors,  and  assenting  without  conditions  to  the 
proposed  arrangement.  But  when  will  he  be  "  about  again  "  ?  The 
nurse  throws  eight  weeks,  somehow,  into  her  expression,  without 
speech,  and  the  forgiven  parson  interprets  for  the  blind  man's 
hearing. 

"  Quite  a  month,  Coupland.  But  I  will  bring  your  little  girl  to 
see  you  the  moment  the  doctors  will  allow  me.  Now,  good-bye !  " 

Alas,  poor  Yorick!  He  had  been  so  enjoying  his  company — 
company  that  had  neither  respect  for  his  cloth,  nor  contempt  for  his 
cloth,  nor  indifference  to  his  cloth;  that,  in  fact,  knew  nothing 
about  his  cloth — and  rejoicing  in  Jim's  free  speech,  that  would  have 
been  cramped  here  and  crimped  there  had  the  speaker  known  he 
was  addressing  a  parson-gentleman.  It  was  like  stepping  back  into 
the  old  days  before  he  took  clerk's  orders;  days  when  he  was  still 
uninsulated,  still  one  with  his  kind.  And  yet  there  was  never  a 
man  with  a  more  earnest  belief  in  his  inherited  mission  to  fight  the 
Devil  in  any  of  the  half -score  of  Churches  that  look  askant  at  one 
another,  and  waste  good  powder  and  shot  over  the  creeds  their  con- 
gregations shout  in  unison,  knowing  all  the  while  that  one  or  more 
of  the  chorus  may  be — must  be — uttering  a  lie.  Athelstan  Taylor 
had  donned  the  cloth  he  wore  simply  because  it  was  the  uniform  of 
his  territorial  regiment  in  the  army  that,  as  he  conceived,  was  be- 
ing for  ever  enrolled  in  the  service  of  Ormuzd  against  Ahrimanes. 
In  his  enthusiasm  to  fight  beneath  the  banner  of  his  division  of  the 
army,  the  Cross,  he  had  ridden  roughshod  over  a  hundred  scruples 
on  petty  details ;  and  the  consequence  was  that  his  most  earnest  ad- 
mirers were  often  fain  to  shake  their  heads  over  his  lawless  ex- 
pressions of  opinion  on  sacred  subjects,  and  to  lament  that  Taylor, 
with  so  many  fine  points  in  his  character,  should  be  on  vital  points 
of  Doctrine  so  painfully  unsound.  It  was  an  open  secret  on  the 
part  of  both  Augustus  Fossett  and  his  sister  that  they  prayed  for 
Athelstan;  the  former  with  a  belief  as  real  as  he  was  capable  of 
that  the  wanderer  would  be  guided ;  the  latter  with  a  practical  mis- 
giving that  a  very  large  number  of  thoughtful  persons  had  not  been 
guided,  or  so  many  samples  would  not  be  to  be  found  outside  the 
Communions  of  the  English — and  Roman — Churches.  For  too 
many  of  her  brother's  idols  had  "  gone  over  "  for  it  to  be  possible 
to  pool  the  latter  in  the  sum  total  of  orthodox,  heterodox,  and 
cacodox  dissidents.  Of  which  last,  in  connection  with  this 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  201 

brother's  and  sister's  petitions  to  the  Almighty  to  guide  Athelstan 
into  their  way  of  thinking,  the  one  they  preferred  to  call  Socinian- 
ism  was  the  most  poisonous  and  insidious.  A  creed  baited  with 
mere  veracities,  to  get  a  bite  from  the  unwary ! 

As  for  Athelstan,  every  time  he  came  to  take  his  friend's  burden 
off  his  shoulders  in  London  he  felt  more  clearly  than  before  how 
apt  he  was  to  lose  sight  of  even  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman  in  a  blind 
struggle  against  the  brutalism  and  debauchery,  and  filth  and  dis- 
ease, of  a  London  outskirt  well  up  to  its  date.  Encouraged  at  first 
by  the  tidiness  of  the  last-built  bee-lines  of  bricks  and  mortar,  he 
had  half  hoped  a  compromise  was  being  found  between  purchasing 
a  sense  of  Christianity  for  the  rich  at  the  cost  of  indefinite  multi- 
plication of  the  poor,  and  passing  sentence  of  death  on  those  unable 
to  enjoy  living  on  nothing,  or  to  give  anything  in  exchange  for 
something.  But  as  soon  as  he  began  to  get  behind  the  scenes  his 
poorer  parishioners  were  enacting,  he  saw  and  heard  every  day 
things  that  had  dashed  his  hope;  and  by  the  time  of  the  story  had 
quite  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  small  population  whose  souls 
he  was  supposed  to  be  looking  after  were  as  vicious  as  the  Court  of 
Charles  the  Second,  and  so  idle  as  to  affirm  the  right  of  male  man- 
kind to  sixteen  hours  out  of  twenty-four  to  eat,  drink,  sleep,  and  do 
nothing  in — slight  exceptions  to  the  last,  to  nobody's  credit,  being 
allowed  for.  Of  course  it  was  an  exaggerated  feeling  on  Athelstan's 
part;  one  thing  was  that  he  could  not  reconcile  himself  to  the 
ubiquitous  fcetor  of  the  beer  in  which,  speaking  broadly,  his  flock 
— who  didn't  acknowledge  him  as  their  shepherd  at  all — lived  and 
moved  and  had  their  being.  Under  exasperation,  he  thought  of 
them  in  that  way  .  .  .  and  forgave  them ! 

Miss  Fossett  interrupted  a  reverie  to  this  effect,  by  saying  to  him, 
as  he  arrived,  after  striding  five  miles  in  an  hour  through  the  slush 
and  drizzle :  "  I've  had  to  put  that  child  to  bed." 

"  Hullo ! — nothing  bad,  I  hope  ? "  What  a  damper !  And  he  had 
looked  forward  so  to  the  small  anxious  face,  and  the  consolation  he 
was  going  to  give  it.  All  his  clients  were  not  so  nice  as  Lizarann. 

"  Dr.  Ferris  said  he  wasn't  sure  if  it  was  pleurisy.  It  might  be 
pneumonia." 

"  Doctor's  been,  then?  " 

"  Oh  yes ! — I  sent  for  him.     She's  been  poulticed  ever  since." 

"  Hope  it's  all  a  fuss  about  nothing." 

"I  hope  so.  Here's  a  visitor,  Lizarann.  Now  don't  you  jump 
up!" 


CHAPTEK  XVI 

BREAKFAST  IN  GROSVENOR  SQUARE.  STRAINED  RELATIONS  OP  TWO 
SISTERS.  A  BATTLE  INTERRUPTED.  SAMARIA  A  GOOD-NATURED  PLACE. 
WHO  WAS  TO  PAY? 

IN  a  town-house  of  the  Arkroyd  order,  a  certain  dramatic  interest 
attaches  to  the  morning  meal  that  is  not  shared  by  any  later  one. 
Nobody  knows  who  will  come  down  to  breakfast,  except  perhaps 
some  confidential  lady's-maid;  and  she  won't  tell,  as  often  as  not. 
So  that  the  knights-harbingers  of  fresh  toast  and  tea  and  coffee 
can  always  enjoy  a  little  sport  in  the  way  of  wagers  as  to  who  will 
take  which,  and  which  of  the  young  ladies  will  be  up — or  down, 
which  is  the  same  thing — before  ten.  The  pleasurable  excitement 
which  those  who  play  cards  feel,  before  they  pick  their  packs  up  and 
know  the  worst,  is  akin  to  theirs,  only  less.  Because  the  cards  may 
be  snapped  up  the  moment  it  isn't  a  misdeal ;  while  the  tension  is 
prolonged  for  the  watcher  who  speculates  beside  a  well-laid  table  as 
to  whether  the  methylated  will  last  out  under  the  urn  till  one  of  the 
ladies  appears  to  make  tea,  or  will  sputter  and  fizz  and  have  to  be 
taken  out  and  refilled,  and  very  likely  the  wick  too  short  all  the 
time! 

Lunch  is  different.  People  make  a  point  of  lunch,  or  else  de- 
clare off,  and  don't  come  home  at  all.  Those  who  do  not  comply 
with  this  rule  are  Foolish  Virgins — and  serve  them  right!  Our 
own  experience,  an  extended  one,  points  to  the  impossibility  of  be- 
ing too  late  for  breakfast.  There  may  be  a  case — but !  .  .  . 

Anyhow,  the  same  human  interest  does  not  attach  to  the  ques- 
tion of  who  is,  or  isn't,  coming  to  lunch.  And  as  for  tea,  nobody 
cares  a  brass  farthing;  because  you  can  get  tea  somewhere  else.  On 
the  other  hand,  dinner  is  a  serious  matter,  and  you  must  make 
your  mind  up ;  and  either  come,  or  not. 

This  tedious  excursion  into  the  ethics  of  Breakfast  is  all  owing 
to  everybody  coming  down  so  late  at  101,  Grosvenor  Square,  on  the 
morning  after  the  last  chapter.  The  story  is,  as  it  were,  kept  wait- 
ing, and  may  as  well  indulge  in  a  few  reflections.  Samuel,  the 
young  man  who  brought  the  chessboard  at  Royd,  had  to  wait,  and 

202 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  203 

seemed  able  to  do  so  without  change  of  countenance.  He  very 
likely  reflected,  for  all  that. 

It  may  have  struck  Samuel,  when  Miss  Arkroyd  made  her  ap- 
pearance first  of  those  expected  by  him,  that  when  this  young  lady 
said,  "  Oh,  nobody !  "  on  entering,  she  did  not  seem  sorry,  and 
picked  up  her  share  of  the  morning's  post  from  her  plate  to  read 
nearer  the  fire  quite  resignedly.  It  was  getting  colder  again,  and 
folk  were  pledging  themselves  not  to  wonder  if  the  wind  were  to  go 
round  to  the  north. 

Judith  looked  at  the  outside  of  her  mother's  and  sister's  letters. 
Sibyl's  interested  her  most;  and  she  looked  them  all  through  care- 
fully, numerous  though  they  were.  Why  does  one  look  at  the  direc- 
tions on  other  people's  letters?  So  Judith  thought  to  herself, 
as  she  got  disgusted  with  the  monotony  of  the  text  on  Sibyl's,  and 
her  inability  to  suggest  any  emendations.  She  was  very  honour- 
able, for  she  read  nothing  but  a  signature  or  two  on  the  numerous 
postcards.  She  was,  in  fact,  only  acting  under  the  impulse  which 
prompts  the  least  inquisitive  of  us  all,  when  we  have  undertaken  to 
post  a  letter  for  a  friend,  to  read  the  address  upon  it  carefully  be- 
fore we  insert  it  into  the  inexorable  box,  and  feel  inside  to  see  that 
it  hasn't  stuck.  Judith  did  not  answer  the  question  she  asked  her- 
self; yet  her  reading  of  the  same  address  again  and  again  called 
more  for  explanation  than  that  of  the  letter-poster;  for  the  latter 
may  be  put  on  his  oath  in  the  end,  if  a  letter  fails  to  reach. 

There  were  so  many  to  "  Miss  Sybil  Arkroyd  "  that  she  had  become 
confused  over  the  spelling  of  the  name  by  the  time  its  owner's  foot- 
step was  heard  on  the  stairs.  However,  she  wasn't  going  to  pretend 
she  hadn't  been  reading  them.  "  There's  one  for  you  from  Betty 
Inglis,"  she  said  incidentally;  and  picking  up  her  own  letters  from 
the  table,  took  them  with  her  to  read  by  the  fire.  It  was  a  morning 
to  make  the  hardiest  give  in  to  the  temptation  of  a  hundred-weight 
of  best  Wallsend,  blazing.  Judith  enjoyed  it;  so  much  so  that  a 
sense  of  a  russet  Liberty  serge,  baking,  crept  into  the  atmosphere 
as  she  sought  in  vain  for  an  inlet  into  an  envelope  cruelly  gummed 
to  its  uttermost  corner.  When  will  envelope-makers  have  com- 
passion for  their  customers'  correspondents? 

"You're  scorching,  Ju.  Or  you  will  be  directly."  So  spoke 
Sibyl,  reading  a  letter  attentively,  and  speaking  through  her  ab- 
sorption as  to  a  world  without.  "Who  was  that?  .  .  .  No — don't 
make  the  tea  yet,  Elphinstone.  Coffee  for  me.  You're  coffee,  I 
suppose,  Ju?  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  coffee.    Who  was  what?" 

"  Who  was  that  in  your  cab  last  night  ?  .   .   .     Well,  you  made 


204  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

noise  enough !  Of  course  I  could  hear !  I'm  not  deaf."  The  let- 
ter is  read  by  now,  being  short,  and  Sibyl  has  come  out  into  the 
world  to  hear  the  answer  to  her  question. 

But  Judith  is  deep  in  half-a-quire  of  illegibility,  after  an  episode 
of  a  fork-point,  and  some  impatience.  "  It's  an  old  dress,"  she 
says,  and  then  ignores  Sibyl  altogether  for  a  term,  in  favour  of  the 
letter.  Her  eyebrows  had  moved  in  connection  with  the  cab- 
inquiry,  up  to  the  point  of  detection  by  a  sharp  younger  sister.  "  I 
had  no  cab,  dear,"  she  says  at  last.  "  I  came  in  Mr.  Challis's  cab." 
This  is  quite  a  long  time  after. 

"Has  Mr.  Challis  a  cab ? " 

"  You  know  perfectly  well  what  I  mean,  Sib." 

Sibyl  knows,  but  has  become  absorbed  in  a  second  letter.  So  she 
leaves  her  tongue,  as  her  representative,  to  say  fragmentarily, 
"  Hansom-cab  off  the  rank,"  and  then  retires  altogether  into  the  let- 
ter for  a  moment.  However,  she  comes  out  presently  to  say,  "  The 
question  is,  was  it  Mr.  Challis?  I  suppose  it  was,  though,  or  it 
couldn't  have  been  Mr.  Challis's  cab  .  .  .  oh  no ! — I'm  not  finding 
fault.  It's  all  perfectly  right  as  far  as  I'm  concerned." 

The  respectable  domestics  have  been  in  momentary  abeyance, 
and  the  conversation  has  been  more  suggestive  than  it  would  have 
been  in  their  presence.  The  reappearance  of  Mr.  Elphinstone,  with 
the  gist  of  two  breakfasts,  causes  an  automatic  adjournment  of  the 
subject.  The  day's  appointments  make  up  the  talk,  during  his 
presence. 

But  so  late  was  the  quorum  of  the  total  breakfast — in  fact,  it  was 
doubtful  whether  two  of  the  constituent  cujusses  would  appear  at 
all — that  Sibyl  got  ample  opportunity  for  resuming  the  conversa- 
tion exactly  where  it  left  off,  at  least  a  quarter-of-an-hour  having 
elapsed. 

"  It's  all  perfectly  right  as  far  as  I'm  concerned,"  she  repeated. 
"  As  long  as  Marianne  doesn't  mind !  "  The  Christian  name  may 
have  been  an  intentional  impertinence. 

"  There  is  nothing  for  Marianne  to  mind,  Sibyl." 

Sibyl  changes  her  ground  unscrupulously.  "  It  doesn't  matter  to 
me  as  long  as  I'm  not  his  wife.  But  a  hansom-cab  is  a  hansom- 
cab,  and  you  know  it  as  well  as  I  do." 

"I  know  it,  dear."  Judith  speaks  serenely.  The  attack  is  too 
puerile  to  call  for  resentment.  "  They  try  one's  nerves  and  destroy 
one's  skirts,  getting  in  and  out." 

Sibyl's  style  has  not  been  worthy  of  her  Square,  or  Mr.  Elphin- 
stone. There  was  too  much  of  the  lowlier  air  of  Seven  Dials  in 
the  suggestion  that  a  hansom-cab  would  promote  an  irregular 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  205 

flirtation  to  do  more  than  provoke  a  smile.  Charlotte  Eldridge, 
even,  would  have  condemned  it  as  the  bald  scoff  of  inexperience. 

But  there  was  more  maturity  and  force  in  Sibyl's  next  speech. 
"  I  want  to  know,  are  you  going  to  tell  the  madre  about  it  or  not  ? " 
Judith  flushed  angrily  as  she  answered  her  with :  "  I  have  told  you, 
Sibyl,  that  as  soon  as  there  is  something  to  tell,  I  will  tell  it  at 
once  to  anyone  it  concerns.  Mamma  certainly !  " 

"  How  far  has  it  gone  ? — that's  what  I  want  to  find  out." 

"  How  far  has  what  gone  ? " 

"  You  needn't  look  so  furious,  Ju.  Do  let's  talk  quietly.  You 
know  perfectly  well  what  I  mean.  This  talk  about  a  trial-per- 
formance." The  imputation  that  Judith  looked  furious  was  a 
sporting  venture.  No  doubt  she  felt  furious,  thought  Sibyl;  and 
how  was  she  to  know  she  didn't  show  it  ? 

"  I  told  you  days  ago  there  was  no  talk  of  a  trial-performance." 

Sibyl  restrained  herself  visibly — too  visibly  for  the  prospects  of 
peace.  After  some  thirty  seconds  of  self-command,  she  reworded 
her  question  mechanically.  "  The  talk  about  something  that  was 
not  to  be  a  trial-performance."  The  forms  of  the  court  were  com- 
plied with,  without  admission  of  previous  lack  of  clearness.  This 
was  shown  in  a  parti  pris  of  facial  immobility.  A  licked  lip,  a 
scratched  nose,  an  eye-blink,  would  have  marred  its  dramatic  force. 

"  You  needn't  look  so  stony  over  it,  Sib.  There's  no  mystery  of 
any  sort,  and  I  can  tell  you  about  it  in  three  words.  Alfred  Chal- 
lis  is  anxious  .  .  .  what  ? " 

"  Nothing — go  on !  " 

"  Mr.  Challis  is  anxious  that  I  should  get  up  enough  of  Aminta 
Torrington's  part  to  give  Mr.  Magnus  an  idea  .  .  .  No! — Sibyl. 
Mr.  Magnus  is  not  vulgar,  and  /  think  him  picturesque.  He 
smokes  too  many  very  large  cigars  perhaps,  and  they  don't  improve 
his  complexion.  But  what  objection  there  can  possibly  be  to  dia- 
mond shirt-studs  ..." 

Sibyl  interrupted.  "You  may  just  as  well  tell  it  all  out,  Ju. 
What  do  you  mean  by  '  enough '  ? " 

"What  do  I  mean  by  enough?  Do  be  intelligible,  Dandelion 
dear !  "  Judith  is  patronizing. 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  call  me  by  that  hatefully  foolish  name. 
Yes — what  do  you  mean  by  'enough'?  Does  it  mean  that  what 
Mr.  Magnus  has  heard  of  what  you  can  do  isn't  enough?  That 
doesn't  mean  that  he's  heard  nothing.  And  you  know  he  hasn't." 

Sibyl  is  really  no  match  for  her  sister  in  the  long  run,  and  per- 
haps this  is  a  sample  of  it — of  a  run  long  enough  for  her  to  get 
ruffled  in.  Judith's  forbearance  becomes  exemplary.  "Listen 


206  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

while  tell  I  you,"  she  says,  imputing  impatience,  "  what  Mr.  Magnus 
has  heard ;  and  then  you  can  talk  about  it." 

"  Very  well,  go  on !  "  snappishly. 

"  The  suggestion  came  from  Mr.  Magnus.  Aired  Challis  .  .  . 
certainly ! — it's  his  name.  Don't  be  absurd.  .  .  .  Alfred  Challis 
may  have  talked  to  him — no  doubt  has — of  my  fitness  for  the  part. 
And  yesterday  between  the  acts  he  asked  us  into  his  room,  and 
made  us  read  one  of  the  scenes.  Of  course  I  was  Aminta,  and 
Alfred  Challis  was  Moorsom.  It  was  where  they  meet  for  the  first 
time  at  the  oculist's  at  Vienna,  in  the  waiting-room.  ..." 

"  Is  that  the  kissing  scene  ? " 

"The  kissing  scene!  Sibyl! — I'm  sorry  you  read  that  manu- 
script. ..." 

"  You  shouldn't  have  left  it  lying  about." 

"  It  was  in  my  bedroom,  child.  .  .  .  Well ! — it  certainly  wasn't 
what  you  choose  to  call  the  kissing  scene  .  .  .  but  it  doesn't  mat- 
ter. I  don't  believe  I  should  ever  be  able  to  make  you  understand 
how  purely  professional  it  all  was.  Mr.  Magnus  sat  on  the  arm  of 
a  chair  smoking,  with  his  thumbs  in  his  waistcoat,  and  said  that 
sort  of  thing  wouldn't  go  down  with  the  public."  Judith  omitted 
Mr.  Magnus's  reason,  which  was  that  it  wasn't  half  "  schick " 
enough,  thick  enough;  for  it  wasn't  clear  which  he  said,  as  his 
tongue  interfered  with  his  articulation. 

Sibyl  listened,  chafing.  When  no  more  seemed  to  be  coming,  she 
elected  to  treat  the  communication  as  a  confession  forced  from  re- 
luctant lips.  "  You  see  I  was  right,  after  all,"  she  said.  "  And  it 
was  Mr.  Challis  in  the  cab."  The  discontinuity  of  semi-accusation 
was  bewildering,  and  refutation  hung  fire  for  a  moment.  She  ran 
on,  giving  her  sister  no  chance.  "  I  really  must  say,  Judith,  that  I 
do  not  understand  you  at  all.  But  you  must  go  your  own  way. 
Do  you  suppose — can  you  suppose — that  any  member  of  your  family 
would  approve  of  what  is  going  on,  if  they  knew  it  ? " 

At  this  point  the  fact  that  Judith  is  really  much  the  cooler  of  the 
two  tells.  "  I  don't  know  whom  you  mean,  Sib,"  she  says  temper- 
ately, "by  they.  No  member  of  my  family  is  plural,  that  I  know 
of  ...  well! — it  isn't  grammar,  according  to  me.  However,  if 
you  mean  the  madre,  we  shall  very  soon  see;  that  is,  if  the  thing 
doesn't  turn  out  a  flash  in  the  pan.  I  shall  tell  her  all  about  it  at 
the  proper  time.  ..." 

"Meanwhile,  hold  my  tongue,  you  mean?  I'm  not  at  all  sure, 
Judith,  that  any  other  sister  in  my  place  wouldn't  at  once  tell  her 
mother  all  she  knew  about  such  goings  on.  ..." 

"  What  are  the  goings  on  ?    I  know  of  no  goings  on." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  207 

"I  do.  This  visit  to  the  back  slums  of  a  theatre,  alone;  I  mean 
unaccompanied  by  any  other  lady.  The  impropriety — yes!  im- 
propriety— of  the  whole  thing.  ..." 

"  Please  don't  make  a  scene,  with  Elphinstone  every  half -minute, 
and  mamma  just  coming  down,  I  never  said  we  were  alone.  If 
you  had  asked  me,  I  should  have  told  you  that  Mrs.  Eldridge  was 
with  us." 

"Who's  Mrs.  Eldridge?" 

"  A  very  nice  person,  a  friend  of  Marianne  Challis.  Her  hus- 
band's in  the  Post  Office.  Madame  Louise  could  dress  her  to  look 
almost  pretty,  if  her  complexion  were  better.  And  propriety — oh 
dear! — the  very  pink!  She  rather  bored  me,  in  fact,  because  she 
wouldn't  let  it  alone." 

"  And  was  this  Mrs.  Ostrich — or  whatever  her  name  is — satis- 
fied?" 

"  Perfectly.  She  has  known  Alfred  Challis  since  before  his  first 
wife  died,  and  has  the  most  absolute  confidence  in  him." 

"I  don't  fancy  your  Mrs.  Ostrich.  Where  was  Mr.  Challis's 
wife  all  this  time?  .  .  .  well! — this  deceased  wife's  sister,  any- 
how." 

"  Sibyl !  I  won't  talk  to  you.  Marianne  Challis  was  where  we 
left  her,  in  the  stage-box.  I  don't  suppose  she  left  it,  but  I  didn't 
ask  her." 

"  And  then  did  she  and  Mrs.  Ostrich  go  home  separately  ?  " 

"Eldridge.  Marianne  Challis  and  she  went  away  together. 
They  were  not  going  home ;  Wimbledon's  too  far,  where  they  are.  I 
really  don't  know  where  they  are  staying." 

"  I'm  not  curious.  But  you  and  Mr.  Challis  drove  home  lovingly 
in  a  hansom,  after  acting  lovers  in  a  play!  There! — you  needn't 
fly  out.  ..." 

Was  it  any  wonder  that  Judith  then  lost  her  temper?  For  she 
had  not  flown  out.  The  insinuation  that  she  would  do  so  was 
based  on  Sibyl's  knowledge  that  she  would  have  been  perfectly 
justified  in  doing  so.  But  now,  she  did  lose  her  temper,  subject  to 
that  disguise  of  self-command  which  tells  for  more  than  any  out- 
burst. 

"  You  are  taking  too  much  on  yourself,  Sibyl.  Mamma  knows. 
At  least,  she  knows  Alfred  Challis  and  his  wife.  They  have  dined 
here,  and  we  agreed — mamma  and  I — to  know  nothing  about  the  de- 
ceased wife's  sister  business.  It  may  even  be  false  from  beginning 
to  end.  .  .  .  A sk  her,  did  you  say?  I  should  never  dream  of  do- 
ing so.  ...  And  as  for  your  other  disgraceful — yes !  disgraceful 
— speech  just  now  .  .  ." 


208  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Well — it's  true  I    You  had  been,  and  you  know  you  had." 

"Had  been  what?" 

"Acting  Moorhouse  and  Aminta  Dorrington." 

"  That's  not  the  way  you  put  it.  But  I  don't  care  about  that. 
It's  only  your  silliness  and  inexperience  makes  you  say  these 
things.  ..." 

"  What  is  it  you  do  care  about,  then  ? " 

"  I  won't  submit  to  be  catechized,  Sibyl.  But  I'll  tell  you.  I  do 
care  about  what  the  madre  thinks — and  papa.  And  I  shall  tell 
her.  ...  I  wonder  who  that  can  be  ?  " 

The  "  that "  in  question  was  a  knock  at  the  front  door,  one  that 
expressed  confidence  that  it  was  at  the  right  house,  and  even  that 
it  would  find  someone  at  home — well-founded  confidence  in  both 
cases.  For  the  Miss  Arkroyds,  listening  for  the  identity  of  the  ab- 
normal visitor — at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning! — only  wait  for  a 
barely  perceptible  instalment  of  voice  and  footstep  to  exclaim 
jointly:  "The  Rector  .  .  .  just  fancy — what  can  he  want?  .  .  . 
In  here,  Elphinstone !  "  And  it  may  be  neither  is  sorry  for  the  in- 
terruption. How  very  frequently  a  visitor  is  the  resolution  of  a 
family  discord!  Judith,  pale  with  suppressed  anger,  recovers  her 
colour.  Sibyl's  flush  of  excitement  dies. 

It  is  the  Rector  of  Royd,  no  doubt  of  that!  And  something 
equivalent  to  a  breeze  of  fresh  air,  or  the  tide  in  an  estuary,  or  the 
new  crackle  of  a  clean  pine-wood  fire — but  not  exactly  any  one  of 
the  three — comes  into  the  room  with  him  and  his  laugh.  He  has  an 
effect  that  is  usual  with  him.  The  under-housemaid,  who  has 
passed  him  on  to  Mr.  Elphinstone,  hopes  she  won't  have  done  dust- 
ing when  he  comes  out.  Mr.  Elphinstone  is  seriously  hurt  at  his 
having  breakfasted  three  hours  ago  and  now  refusing  food,  which 
would  have  promoted  their  intercourse ;  and  the  young  ladies  are  not 
sorry,  on  inquiry,  to  hear  that  her  ladyship  is  not  coming  down, 
but  will  have  her  breakfast  upstairs,  because  thereby  they  will  have 
the  Rev.  Athelstan  all  to  themselves  longer. 

However,  they  chorus  sorrow  which  they  don't  feel  about  their 
mother;  and  affect  an  equally  hypocritical  satisfaction  at  a  prob- 
able appearance  of  their  father,  which  they  don't  believe  in. 

"  You'll  see  papa  will  come  in  presently  and  say  he  never  heard 
the  bell."  Thus  Judith,  who  shows  her  pack  by  adding :  "  Now  do 
let's  talk  and  be  comfortable  till  he  comes."  All  right — nem.  con.! 

"  I  think  you  the  most  profligate  and  dissipated  family  in  London 
and  Westminster.  .  .  .  Come  nearer  the  fire  ?  Not  if  I  know  it. 
Both  you  girls  are  scorching.  .  .  .  Well  now  I  What  was  it  last 
night?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  209 

"They  went  to  'Ibsen.'"  Judith  summarizes,  abruptly.  Sibyl 
says :  "  And  you  went  to  the  Megatherium,"  rather  as  a  counter- 
accusation  than  a  contribution  of  fact.  The  visitor  looks  quickly 
from  the  one  to  the  other.  Whatever  he  notes,  he  passes  it  by. 

"  I've  been  to  '  Ibsen,'  "  he  says,  "  and  know  all  about  it.  The 
people  commit  suicide.  What  was  the  other  play  ?  " 

"  A  stupid  thing.  I  really  hardly  made  out  what  it  was  about. 
But  the  author's  a  friend  of  the  people  I  went  with.  You  remember 
Mr.  Challis,  Mr.  Taylor?  I  brought  him  to  tea  at  the  Rectory." 

"  Of  course.  I  thought  him  such  a  shy  customer.  But  I  met 
him  after  that.  We  had  quite  a  chat." 

"  Oh  yes — I  remember  he  talked  about  it  to  me.  I'm  afraid  you 
found  him  a  great  heathen." 

"  Absolutely."  Mr.  Taylor  laughs  cheerfully  over  Alfred  Chal- 
lis's  heathenism.  "  But  a  very  good  Christian  for  all  that.  I 
shouldn't  say  so  to  the  Bishop,  though.  He  never  came  to  church, 
and  I  wasn't  sorry.  ..." 

"  Do  take  care,  Mr.  Taylor.    We  shall  tell  the  Bishop." 

"...  Not  on  his  account,  you  know — on  my  own.  He  would 
have  convicted  me  of  plagiarism.  I  took  all  his  ideas  for  my  ser- 
mon." 

This  was  incidental  chat,  leading  to  nothing.  Then  followed  in- 
quiry, overdue,  about  the  Rector's  establishment,  especially  his 
locum  tenens  at  Royd,  the  reporting  of  whom  brought  disquiet  to 
his  face.  His  hearers  knew  he  was  making  the  best  of  it;  he  was 
not  a  good  actor.  This  led  naturally  to  conversation  about  his  own 
temporary  ZOOMS  tenendus  in  his  friend's  behalf,  and  so  to  the  miser- 
able tragedy  of  the  drunkard's  death  in  the  canal-lock.  Now  it 
was  well  over  four  months  since  either  young  lady  had  done  any 
slumming  in  the  Tallack  Street  quarter:  indeed,  their  visits  there 
soon  lost  the  charm  of  novelty,  so  neither  recollected  its  inhabitants 
off-hand.  The  description  failed  to  identify,  until  Mr.  Taylor  men- 
tioned the  unhappy  Uncle  Bob  by  name,  first  heard  by  him  at  the 
inquest.  Then  a  recollection  struck  Judith. 

"That  must  have  been  the  man  that  said  he  was  'mine  truly, 
Robert  Steptoe,'  "  said  she.  "  How  very  shocking !  "  The  horror 
of  the  story  of  course  increased  tenfold  the  moment  a  nexus  was 
established.  Reminiscence,  at  work  in  Sibyl's  mind,  caused  her  to 
strike  in  upon  Mr.  Taylor's  continuation  of  his  narrative ;  on  which 
he  arrested  it  to  hear  what  she  was  going  to  say.  She  said :  "  Never 
mind,  go  on !  "  till  pressed  to  take  her  turn  first ;  then  said :  "  Wasn't 
that  the  blind  beggar  and  the  little  girl — the  same  family,  I 
mean?" 


210  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"Exactly.  I  was  just  coming  to  them."  And  then  the  Rev. 
Athelstan  proceeded  with  a  full  account  of  poor  Jim's  sad  plight 
in  the  Hospital,  and  of  how  the  little  girl  had  been  a  great  source 
of  anxiety  to  Addie  Fossett.  He  contrived  to  assign  the  whole  of 
the  activities  on  Lizarann's  behalf  to  that  lady;  having,  indeed,  a 
most  happy  impersonal  faculty  of  narration,  which  detailed  the 
facts  without  his  own  connection  with  them. 

"  They  are  really  the  reason  of  my  coming  here  this  morning," 
said  he  in  conclusion.  "  I  dare  say  you  have  both  been  wondering 
what  it  was  all  about.  However,  it's  that.  This  poor  fellow,  Jim 
Coupland,  oughtn't  to  be  allowed  to  sell  matches  in  the  streets. 
And  although  he  makes  a  good  deal  by  what  is  really  begging  in 
disguise  ..." 

"He  makes  three  times  what  he  would  at  any  trade."  Sibyl 
speaks  positively;  she  always  knows  things. 

"  But  he's  putting  it  all  by  for  the  child."  The  clergyman  justi- 
fies Jim,  promptly. 

"  Please  go  on  with  what  you  were  saying,  Mr.  Taylor !  "  Judith 
speaks.  " '  Although  he  makes  a  good  deal  by  what  is  really  beg- 
ging in  disguise '  ..." 

"He  might  be  dissuaded  from  it  even  if  the  loss  of  his  foot — 
poor  fellow ! — should  make  it  more  lucrative." 

"  I  don't  see  how."  This  is  Sibyl,  naturally.  The  Rector  makes 
a  mental  note  that  she  is  always  in  opposition.  Her  sister  saya 
nothing,  and  he  resumes : 

"You  remember  the  story  of  the  asJcer? "  Sibyl  remembers  it 
with  a  snap,  and  "  Of  course ! — go  on !  "  Judith,  more  slowly, 
thinks  she  remembers,  and  then — oh  yes ! — she  remembers  now.  The 
speaker  continues:  "You  know  the  child  isn't  seven,  and  doesn't 
the  least  realize  about  her  father.  She  has  been  indoctrinated  from 
babyhood  with  a  false  idea  of  some  employment  he  has;  he's  as  pro- 
fessional to  her  as  the  turncock  or  lamplighter.  But  he — poor 
chap ! — is  most  anxious  she  should  never  know  the  truth.  Yester- 
day he  consented  to  not  seeing  the  child  for  another  six  weeks — 
although  he's  longing  for  her,  day  and  night — because  he  wants  to 
spare  her  the  knowledge  of  his  stump.  He's  convinced  that  a 
wooden  leg  will  be  a  great  joke  between  them,  and  is  devising  shifts 
by  which  it  may  be  concealed  from  his  '  little  lass,'  as  he  calls  her, 
that  it  is  ever  taken  off.  And  yesterday,  after  swearing  me,  as  it 
were,  into  the  conspiracy  for  the  child's  deception,  he  ended  up  with 
an  earnest  request  that  I  would  never  'let  on'  about  his  being  a 
'  cadging  varmint.'  I  pointed  out  to  him  the  utter  uselessness  of 
the  attempt,  and  that  it  must  fail  in  the  end,  and  that  the  longer  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  211 

knowledge  is  put  off,  the  more  painful  it  will  be  when  it  comes.  I 
suspect  he  would  give  it  up,  to  spare  her.  But  he  would  have  to  be 
provided  for,  somehow." 

"  Have  to  be !  "  Sibyl's  tone  suggests  impatient  protest  against 
Jim's  case  being  made  a  claim  on  Society.  The  whole  duty  of  a 
Christian  includes  a  liberal  amount  of  slumming;  but  it  must  be 
distinctly  understood  to  be  Christianity,  not  bald  equity.  Athelstan 
Taylor  didn't  feel  analytical  on  the  subject.  He  knew  he  would 
have  "  had  to "  cross  the  road  between  Jerusalem  and  Jericho  if 
he  had  happened  to  come  up  before  the  Samaritan,  or  else  that  he 
would  have  been  miserable  all  night  about  the  man  that  had  fallen 
among  thieves  and  come  to  grief.  He  was  like  that  at  school,  you 
see.  Such  an  awfully  good-natured  chap !  Probably  Samaria  was 
an  awfully  good-natured  place.  Anyhow,  he  didn't  see  his  way  to 
discussing  the  point  this  morning.  He  made  a  concession: 

"Well — suppose  we  say  it  would  be  a  pleasure  to  do  it!  You 
would  feel  it  so  if  you  knew  the  child.  Really  that  infant's  pluck 
when  that  poor  madman  was  flourishing  that  horrible  knife 
about  ..." 

"  But  you  didn't  tell  us  about  that."  Both  ladies  speak.  Indeed, 
Mr.  Taylor  had  slurred  over  a  great  deal  of  his  adventure,  merely 
saying  he  was  passing  the  house  and  had  given  what  assistance  he 
could,  with  very  little  detail  till  he  got  to  Uncle  Bob's  escape. 

"  I  never  saw  such  a  courageous  child  in  my  life.  Addie  Fos- 
sett's  got  her  at  the  Schoolhouse  now.  She  got  a  bad  chill  that 
night,  and  we've  been  very  uneasy  about  her.  Perhaps  we  are  both 
of  us  given  to  fidgeting  about  coughs  and  temperatures  and  things. 
However ! "  This  isolated  word  expresses,  as  briefly  as  possible, 
dismissal  of  the  subject  as  material  for  depression,  with  retention 
of  it  as  stimulus  to  action. 

Judith  is  only  languidly  interested.  "  What  do  you  think  of 
doing,  Mr.  Taylor  ? "  she  says  absently.  Her  mind  is  on  the  play- 
house, yesterday. 

"  I'm  not  very  clear  about  details,  but  if  Jim  will  be  tractable, 
and  do  as  he's  told,  there  ought  to  be  some  arrangement  possible. 
He  admits  that  he  has  some  money  in  the  savings-bank,  and  the 
Carriers'  Co.  that  ran  over  him  .  .  .  yes! — Fve  seen  the  man- 
ager .  .  .  are  inclined  to  be  liberal  in  the  matter  of  compensation ; 
and  then  there's  ..."  Here  a  hesitation  comes  in. 

"  There's  papa,  of  course."  Both  ladies  agree  about  their  parent, 
as  a  sort  of  fons  et  origo  nummorum.  Mr.  Taylor  had  better  talk 
to  him  about  it.  Mr.  Elphinstone,  after  thirty-five  years  in  the 
family,  has  no  scruple  about  showing  that  he  overhears  conversa- 


212  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tion,  and  subinforms  Miss  Arkroyd  that  Sir  Murgatroyd  is  im- 
minent. Pending  the  baronet,  the  conversation  is  general,  then 
drifts  towards  the  Great  Idea.  Sibyl  becomes  gracious — points 
with  pride  to  a  mountain  of  letters  on  the  subject  that  she  will  have 
to  answer  before  she  goes  out.  Mr.  Elphinstone  has  restricted  them 
to  a  clear  spot  on  the  breakfast-table,  without  presuming  to  fold  or 
envelope.  Miss  Arkroyd  detracts  from  their  glory.  Most  of  them 
are  from  artists  who  want  to  make  designs  for  the  cripples  to  ex- 
ecute, or  from  cripples  who  can  do  nothing  at  present,  but  would 
take  three-and-sixpence  a  week  during  apprenticeship.  Sibyl  is  in- 
dignant. The  letters  are  the  exact  contrary  of  what  Judith  alleges. 
It  is  easy  to  sneer,  but  read  what  Mr.  Brewdover  says.  There's  his 
letter !  But  Judith  says  she  isn't  prepared  to  take  up  her  parable  on 
the  subject — doesn't  know  enough  about  the  matter.  No  doubt  it's 
all  right !  She  withdraws  an  incipient  yawn,  and  Sibyl  says  some- 
thing sotto  voce,  possibly  that  Judith  might  just  as  well  have  held 
her  tongue. 

Athelstan  Taylor,  writing  of  this  interview  to  his  friend  Gus 
later,  said :  "  I  was  glad  at  this  point  that  the  Bart,  came  in, 
apologetic — as  I  didn't  fancy  having  to  make  peace  between  those 
two  girls.  Why  need  well-brought-up  young  women  to  be  so  quar- 
relsome— without  the  excuse  of  Alcoholism?  They  are  rather  a 
disappointment — those  two — they  Tised  to  be  so  nice  as  kids.  I 
must  say  the  old  boy  is  my  favourite  of  the  family  still — he  was 
quite  exemplary  about  this  poor  sailor  chap — said,  if  7  was  con- 
vinced, that  was  enough  for  him,  and  I  had  only  to  say  how  much 
would  be  wanted.  Her  ladyship  was  very  good  too — do  her  justice! 
— promised  to  come  and  see  poor  Jim  at  the  Hospital;  and  I  think 
will  keep  her  promise."  He  added  a  postscript  next  day:  "Lady 
Arkroyd's  visit  came  off  this  morning,  and  passed  off  without  ruc- 
tions. I  was  rather  nervous,  because  her  ladyship  thinks  it  her 
duty  to  get  up  a  sort  of  theologico-ethico-moral-goody  steam  "because 
I'm  there — and  poor  Jim  is  such  a  terrible  and  appalling  example  of 
theoretical  irreligion  that  I  was  on  tenterhooks." 


CHAPTEK  XVH 

LADY  ARKROYD'S  VISIT  TO  JIM.    GOODY  TALK.    JIM  AND  HIS  MAKER. 
HOW  MR.  TAYLOR  VISITED  ANOTHER  CASE.    A  DEATH-BED  CONFESSION 

THE  reference  to  Jim's  irreligious  attitude,  in  the  Rector's  letter, 
makes  it  almost  incumbent  on  the  story  to  give  some  particulars  of 
Lady  Arkroyd's  visit  to  the  Hospital. 

Athelstan  Taylor,  of  course,  came  to  his  appointment  to  the  min- 
ute. He  always  preferred  to  do  the  waiting  himself  if  he  could 
spare  the  time,  and  he  usually  found  something  to  avert  tedium. 
On  this  occasion,  seeing  no  sign,  when  he  arrived  at  St.  Brides,  of 
the  Arkroyd  pair  of  bays,  or  the  dark  chestnuts  with  starred  fore- 
heads— both  well  known  to  him — he  made  short  excursions  into  the 
neighbourhood,  hoping  each  time  to  just  catch  Lady  Arkroyd  on  her 
arrival  when  he  returned. 

He  made  three  such  excursions,  amounting  in  all  to  half  an  hour. 
The  first  and  longest  was  made  so  by  his  lighting  on  a  fight  between 
two  small  boys,  which  he  felt  bound  to  interrupt.  But  not  at  the 
very  earliest;  it  was  such  a  good  fight,  and  the  two  pugilists  and 
their  friends  were  enjoying  it  so.  So  he  spun  out  his  approach  aa 
much  as  possible,  and  then  pounced  with,  "  Why  aren't  you  two  at 
school,  hey?"  They  looked  at  each  other,  and  at  him,  as  their 
friends  did  also,  but  could  not  agree  on  a  reason.  Then  they  said, 
"  Let's  go  down  the  lyne,"  and  fled,  carrying  jackets,  to  begin  again 
as  soon  as  possible.  Pursuit  down  the  lane  did  not  seem  to  come 
into  practical  politics. 

The  second  excursion  was  shorter,  and  he  was  sorry  he  could  not 
spare  time  for  more  conversation  with  a  purveyor  of  tortoises,  who 
was  offering  them  to  the  public  from  a  truck.  Why  should  the 
trade  in  tortoises  flourish  in  South  London  ?  Why  tortoises  at  all  ? 
He  could  not  stop  to  learn;  and  when  he  found  that  her  ladyship 
was  still  in  arrear,  he  started  back  to  find  the  tortoise-monger,  but 
failed  to  do  so.  On  his  return  this  time,  he  thought  it  best  to  step 
into  the  Hospital  and  get  a  few  words  with  his  friend  the  House 
Surgeon,  to  whom  he  had  sent  a  card  overnight.  It  was  all  right, 
said  that  gentleman,  about  the  dressers.  They  had  nearly  done  by 
now,  and  Jim's  case  had  been  made  a  point  of — was  quite  ready 

213 


214  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

for  visitors;  nothing  doing  now  till  the  visiting  surgeon  came — in 
an  hour  and  a  half  about.  Mr.  Taylor,  reassured,  went  out  again 
to  meet  her  ladyship,  and  presently  saw  the  carriage  coming  down 
the  street.  In  a  very  short  time  he  was  telling  Jim  he  had  brought 
a  lady  to  see  him. 

"  It's  mighty  kind  of  you,  master.  And  it's  mighty  kind  o'  the 
lady.  I'm  not  so  fit  to  see  company  as  I  might  be."  He  did  not 
mean  he  could  not  see;  for  he  always  forgot  his  blindness.  He 
referred  entirely  to  his  uncourtly  entourage. 

"  We  mustn't  trouble  about  that,"  said  her  ladyship,  and  really 
didn't  mean  to  be  condescending.  "  I  shall  sit  here,  Mr.  Taylor. 
Where  will  you  come  ? "  Here  being  the  chair  beside  the  bed. 
Mr.  Taylor  wouldn't  sit  down;  indeed,  it  was  easier  to  stand,  as 
long  as  Jim  kept  his  hand,  which  he  did  not  seem  inclined  to 
let  go. 

"  Tell  this  lady  about  your  accident,  Jim." 

"  Oh,  do,  please !  I  should  so  like  to  hear."  This  was  true,  and 
opened  up  an  avenue  of  respite  to  a  feeling  of  her  ladyship's  that 
she  ought  to  say  something  good,  if  it  was  only  about  how  we  should 
bow  to  the  will  of  an  All-wise  Providence.  She  had  got  that  ready 
in  the  carriage  coming  through  Old  Bond  Street,  and  had  felt  quite 
sure  she  should  think  of  something  better  presently,  and  hadn't  suc- 
ceeded. So  she  was  glad  of  a  pause,  to  think  in.  Besides,  it  was 
interesting. 

"  There's  none  so  much  to  tell  about  it,  lady ;  you  might  put  it 
all  inside  of  a  minute,  in  the  manner  o'  speaking.  Ye  see,  I  never 
see  this  van  coming  along — never  took  note,  I  should  say! — more 
by  token  I  was  listening  like  to  hear  the  voice  of  my  little  lass  call 
'  Pilot ' — a  kind  of  diversion  we  make  out  between  us,  me  and  the 
lassie  .  .  .  you'll  understand?  ..." 

"  I  quite  understand.  Your  little  lass  is  the  child  I  have  seen  at 
Miss  Fossett's  Schoolroom.  Little  Eliza  Ann." 

"  Belike  you  have,  lady.  She's  Lizarann,  sure  I  Well,  this  here 
van  come  along  in  the  dark,  and  there  was  I  mazed  like,  by  reason 
of  not  finding  the  granite  curb.  It  come  with  a  nasty  rush,  and  I 
had  no  way  on  me  to  steer  clear,  set  apart  the  want  of  sea-room. 
But  I'm  a  bit  uncertain  how  it  come  about,  there's  the  truth  of 
it ! "  Jim  paused,  and  felt  for  an  expression,  probably  one  akin 
to  loss  of  presence  of  mind ;  then  ended  with,  "  In  a  quick  turn 
about  o'  things,  you  don't  easy  come  by  the  time  to  get  your  con- 
sider-in' cap  on.  But  it  was  no  fault  of  any  man,  as  I  see  it," 

Lady  Arkroyd  saw  an  opportunity.  "It  was  the  will  of  Provi- 
dence," she  said.  There  could  be  no  harm  in  that,  although  her 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  215 

clerical  friend  had  cautioned  her  that  Jim's  mind  was  not  an  easy 
one  to  deal  with  on  religious  lines.  But  Jews,  Turks,  Heretics,  and 
Infidels  innumerable  could  have  subscribed  to  this,  surely.  Jim 
only  said,  with  the  most  perfect  simplicity :  "  I  wouldn't  wish  to  fix 
the  blame,  with  any  confidence.  It  was  just  a  chance,  as  I  see  it." 
Her  ladyship  did  not  catch  the  exact  tenor  of  the  remark,  and  did 
not  see  the  amused,  benevolent  smile  on  the  face  of  the  big  man 
who  still  stood  looking  down  on  Jim,  holding  his  hand  as  he  would 
have  held  a  child's. 

The  fact  was  that,  on  one  of  the  two  or  three  occasions  when  the 
Rev.  Athelstan  had  referred — but  quite  colloquially,  and  without 
any  idea  of  taking  a  mean  advantage  of  Jim's  helplessness — to  the 
Almighty  as  the  responsible  agent  in  the  matter,  Jim  had  taken  up 
the  theological  position  that  if  God  hadn't  "  cut  in,"  he — Jim- 
might  have  been  still  the  strong  seaman  on  the  great  free  sea,  might 
have  actually  seen  his  little  lass !  Dolly  must  have  died,  of  course 
— "my  wife,  seven  year  agone,  master,"  said  Jim.  "Because  a 
many  on  us  may  die,  any  time  " — but  that  was  another  matter.  At 
least,  why  need  both  his  eyes  go  ?  "  Ah,  master !  "  said  he,  when  it 
was  settled  that  if  God  had  done  one  job,  he'd  done  the  other, 
"  why  couldn't  he  leave  me  just  no  more  than  a  quarter-allowance 
of  one  of  them — just  for  to  see  my  wife  and  the  little  lass  to- 
gether, what  time  there  was  for  it?"  Perhaps  it  was  part  of  the 
Rector  of  Royd's  unsoundness  that  he  almost  lost  sight  of  Jim's 
anthropomorphism — the  naivete  of  his  presentment  of  his  Maker 
as  a  meddlesome  old  plague — in  the  heartbroken  voice  that  could 
still  speak  about  the  eyes  that  could  no  longer  see,  about  the  child 
his  touch  and  hearing  alone  could  tell  him  of.  Part  of  that  un- 
soundness, too,  maybe,  that  he  resolved  thenceforward  to  make  no 
attempt  to  change  Jim's  views,  except  by  hypnotic  suggestions,  or 
their  equivalent!  No  crop  could  grow  on  land  so  foully  manured! 
Better  to  leave  it  to  the  wild-flowers  for  a  season. 

He  certainly  thought  he  saw  an  improvement  of  Jim's  feelings 
towards  this  strange  deity  of  his  conception,  in  this  readiness  to 
exonerate  him,  or  it,  and  to  lay  the  blame  on  the  metaphysico- 
religious  scapegoat,  Chance.  It  was  manifested  in  the  tone  of  his 
voice,  one  of  willingness  to  spare  even  an  author  of  mischief — 
maybe  a  well-intentioned  blunderer — and  to  find  an  insensitive  back 
to  flagellate  in  his  place. 

"  The  merest  chance,  I  am  sure !  "  Lady  Arkroyd  welcomed  the 
scapegoat,  and  the  Rev.  Athelstan  looked  more  amused  than  ever, 
under  the  skin.  The  lady  never  suspected  herself  of  any  absurdity. 
"  But  Sir  Murgatroyd  says  the  matter  ought  to  be  gone  into,  and 


216  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

proper  inquiries  made."  The  Baronet  had  done  so,  certainly;  but 
may  be  said  to  have  been  left  speaking,  like  M.P.'s  when  a  reporter 
packs  off  an  instalment  of  shorthand  in  mediis  rebus.  "  Of  course, 
if  there  was  any  doubt  about  the  driver  of  the  van  being  sober  at 
the  time  ..." 

Jim  showed  anxiety  on  the  carman's  behalf.  "He  mightn't  be 
any  the  worse  driver  for  that,  lady,"  he  said.  "  It  was  the  sart  o' 
night  a  pint  or  so  don't  go  far  on,  to  keep  the  life  in  a  man." 

"  Jim  won't  grudge  him  that  much,  on  such  a  night,  Lady  Ark- 
royd.  But  Sir  Murgatroyd's  quite  right,  of  course !  However,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  the  whole  thing  has  been  thoroughly  sifted,  and  it 
seems  certain  drink  had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  this  time." 

"  Not  likely,  master !  Didn't  the  pore  feller  make  a  shift  to  get 
over  here  a'ter  work  hours — took  a  night-turn  all  the  way  from 
Camden  Road  goods  station — so  they  told  me — just  for  to  hear  the 
end  of  the  story?  And  the  follerin'  night?  So  they  said,  and  I'm 
tellin'  ye  all  I  know.  In  coorse,  I  never  seen  him,  myself !  " 

"  No — of  course  you  could  not."  Lady  Arkroyd's  pity  for  Jim's 
blindness,  which  his  speech  ignored,  is  mistaken  by  him  for  regret 
at  the  stringency  of  visiting  regulations.  The  feeling  of  com- 
passion in  her  voice  seems  to  him  only  man's  natural  resentment 
against  rules,  interpreted  by  womanly  sensibility. 

"  I'll  see  him  one  o'  these  days,  lady,"  Jim  says  consolatorily. 
Of  course,  he  means  in  the  days  of  the  wooden  leg  to  come,  if  not 
sooner.  Her  ladyship,  still  conscious  of  the  desirability  of  a 
religious  atmosphere,  has  some  vague  impression  that  Mr.  Taylor 
has  been  guaranteeing  Jim  eyesight  on  a  cloud,  through  the  whole 
of  an  exasperating  Sunday  lasting  for  ever ;  and  she  makes  up  her 
mind  Jim  could  be  read  to  out  of  the  Bible  with  advantage,  and  of 
course  there  were  any  number  of  people  ready  to  do  this  sort  of 
thing.  She  will  inquire  about  that.  Biit  Jim  had  really  wanted  to 
change  the  conversation  to  a  subject  nearer  his  heart. 

"My  little  lass,  lady!"  he  said.  "You  seen  the  lass  once, 
round  to  the  Schoolhouse.  Happen  you  might  see  her  again  ? " 

"  If  I  see  Miss  Fossett,  Coupland,  I  shall  certainly  ask  her  to 
point  out  your  little  girl.  She  may  not  be  there,  you  know." 

"  That's  so,  lady.  But  supposin' !  Any  guess  thing  you  might 
speak  about,  ye  know.  So  I  was  just  thinkin',  if  you  was  to  be  so 
very  kind  as  to  bear  in  mind  ..." 

"Yes.  Indeed  I  will,  Coupland.  Is  there  something  you  wish 
I  should  say?" 

"Well,  lady,  yes!  And  be  very  thankful  to  ye!  Would  ye  be 
80  very  kind  as  just  say  to  her  .  .  .  from  her  Daddy,  ye  know 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  217 

.  .  .  nothing  at  all  about  any  sort  of  an  ill-convenience  come  of 
this  here  accident.  Just  make  it  easy,  like  .  .  .  for  she's  but 
young,  ye'll  understand.  ..." 

"  Jim  means  ...  I  know,  Jim  " — for  Jim  seemed  about  to  in- 
terrupt the  Rev.  Athelstan — "  he  means  he  wants  Lizarann  to  think 
the  accident  a  slight  one." 

"  Right  you  are,  master ! "  Jim  is  much  relieved,  and  his  in- 
terpreter continues :  "  So  he  wants  her  to  know  as  little  as  pos- 
sible till  he  can  walk  about  and  make  the  least  of  it." 

"  Oh  yes !  I  quite  understand  that.  I'll  be  very  careful  and 
discreet." 

"  Not  for  to  let  on,  anyways,  about  her  Daddy  being  a  fut  the 
less !  "  Jim's  relief  is  enormous  at  the  completeness  of  the  under- 
standing. 

The  conversation  ran  on,  on  such  general  lines  as  the  diet  of 
hospital  life — highly  approved  of — the  sanguineness  of  the  head- 
surgeon  that  Jim  would  make  a  record  in  recovery,  and  the  pe- 
culiarly small  amount  of  inconvenience  endured  (if  the  truth  were 
known)  by  the  wearers  of  wooden  legs.  Jim  was  very  cheerful 
about  this.  "  Bob  Steptoe,  he'll  lose  a  good  half  o'  my  custom,"  said 
he,  immensely  amused. 

At  this  moment  an  interruption  occurred.  A  nurse  who  had 
passed  through  the  room  a  few  minutes  before  rather  hurriedly  was 
returning,  with  a  slightly  perplexed  manner  on  her,  as  of  one  who 
had  not  found  a  thing  sought  for.  At  the  same  moment  another, 
who  seemed  a  superior  functionary,  came  in  from  the  opposite  door, 
and  they  met  and  spoke  together  in  an  undertone.  Both  looked 
round  towards  Jim's  bed. 

"  I  can  ask  him,  anyhow ! "  said  the  senior  nurse,  and  ap- 
proached Athelstan  Taylo?.  She  spoke  to  him  rapidly  under  her 
breath,  but  of  what  she  said  neither  Jim  nor  the  lady  heard  any- 
thing. When  she  had  finished,  he  said,  "  Of  course,  certainly ! " 
and  then,  turning  to  Lady  Arkroyd,  explained  that  a  man  who  was 
dying  in  another  part  of  the  Hospital  had  asked  to  see  a  clergyman, 
and  that  an  unusual  conjunction  of  circumstances  had  made  it  dif- 
ficult to  comply  with  his  request,  which  was  urgent.  He  might 
die  any  moment,  the  nurse  had  said,  and  Mr.  *  *  *  was  ill — he 
being,  presumably,  the  usual  resource  in  such  cases.  Mr.  Taylor 
was  sure  Lady  Arkroyd  would  excuse  him.  But  it  would  be  bet- 
ter for  him  to  say  good-bye  provisionally,  as  no  one  could  tell  how 
long  he  might  be  detained.  Her  ladyship  would  no  doubt  stay  and 
talk  with  Jim  a  little  longer. 

Lady  Arkroyd  was  not  sorry  to  do  so.    She  had  not  quite  come 


218  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

•up  to  her  own  standard  of  self -justification ;  having,  indeed,  a  well- 
marked  conviction  of  her  capability  of  doing  anything  she  turned 
her  hands  to,  and  certainly  not  least  of  affording  consolation  and 
help  to  the  distressed.  Without  cataloguing  the  instances,  she  had 
an  inner  conviction  of  the  existence  of  a  class  of  persons  who  were 
sick,  and  she  visited  them.  She  was  a  good-natured  woman  enough, 
and  really  took  sufficient  pleasure  in  doing  good  on  purpose,  to  make 
playing  at  Providence  a  luxury,  or  at  least  to  -prevent  its  ever  be- 
coming a  bore.  No  wonder  that  on  this  occasion  she  felt  a  little 
damped,  with  nothing  further  to  her  score  so  far  than  an  under- 
taking on  her  part  to  hold  her  tongue  and  be  discreet,  under  speci- 
fied circumstances. 

"  The  master's  coming  back — the  gentleman  ? "  says  Jim,  as  the 
door  closes  on  Mr.  Taylor  and  the  nurse. 

"  Oh  yes ! — he'll  come  back  to  see  you  before  he  goes."  Jim  has 
to  be  satisfied  with  this.  "  You  must  try  to  keep  quiet  and  be  pa- 
tient, Coupland,  and  then  the  healing  will  go  on  quicker.  ..." 

"It  ain't  hardly  impatience,  lady."  Jim  pauses  to  think  what 
it  is.  "  Not  so  much  as  the  want  of  a  good  stretch.  I'd  be  all  right 
if  they'd  take  this  here  plaister  off  o'  my  right  leg.  It's  a  mighty 
thick  plaister,  anyhow."  Jim's  slight  movement  is  terribly  ex- 
pressive of  the  irksomeness  of  his  lot.  The  nurse  in  charge  notes 
the  fact,  and  contrives  such  alleviation  as  may  be — an  alteration  in 
the  angle  of  the  couch,  an  adjustment  of  a  pillow,  a  dose  of  some 
refreshing  stimulant  that  seems  not  unwelcome.  "He's  not  the 
trouble  many  are,"  says  she.  Jim  seems  a  favourite. 

Lady  Arkroyd,  left  to  herself,  casts  about  for  something  to  say 
which  shall  neither  be  aggressively  religious  nor  too  cowardly  a  con- 
cession to  Jim's  heathenism,  of  which  Mr.  Taylor  has  spoken  freely 
to  her.  After  a  few  more  words  about  collateral  matter,  especially 
about  the  Hospital's  veto  on  smoking — a  bitter  privation — she 
thinks  she  sees  her  way. 

"  It  is  very  hard,  Coupland,  and  one  can't  help  saying  so.  Only, 
of  course,  it  doesn't  do  to  call  the  Wisdom  of  Providence  in  ques- 
tion. ..." 

"  What  might  that  be,  missis — lady,  I  should  say  ? "  Now  the 
fact  is,  Jim  was  not  inquiring  about  the  Wisdom  of  Providence — of 
which  he  had  heard  before  from  Mr.  Wilkins — but  about  the  mean- 
ing of  "calling  in  question."  The  lady  thought  otherwise,  mis- 
takenly. 

"  I  only  meant,"  she  said,  feeling  very  unsafe,  "  that  we  know — 
at  least,  we  believe — that  events  are  Divinely  ordered  for  the  best." 

"Ye  know  better  than  I  do  about  that,  lady,"  said  Jim.    And 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  219 

then  Lady  Arkroyd  thought  he  was  an  Agnostic.  He  had  really 
only  paid  tribute  to  her  superior  education.  But  it  seemed  to  set 
him  a-thinking,  too !  For  he  added,  after  a  pause :  "  If  they'd  a' 
been  ordered  for  the  worst,  maybe  I  might  have  had  my  barker- 
pipe."  The  word  "Divinely"  had  not  carried  his  mind  outside 
the  Hospital  regulations.  Poor  Jim  had  not  the  remotest  con- 
ception that  he  had  shocked  his  lady  visitor. 

Nevertheless,  she  was  shocked,  and  felt  the  case  called  for  an 
effort.  But  her  own  religious  convictions — only  she  had  been  quite 
properly  educated,  mind  you ! — were  few  and  vapid.  Her  propri- 
etorship of  a  Prayer-Book,  with  a  mark  in  the  right  place,  nearly 
covered  the  whole  ground.  However,  there  was  always  the  Rev. 
Athelstan ;  she  could  make  him  responsible,  by  indirect  engineering, 
for  any  amount  of  belief,  whatever  her  own  unprofessional  laxity 
might  be.  So  she  assumed  a  definitely  religious  air,  and  ignored 
Jim's  unfortunate  remark  about  the  pipe. 

"  I  feel  so  sure,  Coupland,  that  Mr.  Taylor  has  told  you,  and  will 
tell  you  more,  about  Where  to  look,  in  tribulation  for  ..." 

"  Sakes  alive,  Lady!  Me  look!  ..."  Jim,  who  had  inter- 
rupted, stopped  suddenly,  confused  and  perturbed  at  something. 
Her  ladyship,  interpreting  this  as  some  protest  of  Agnosticism,  now 
felt  her  insufficiency  to  deal  with  the  case,  and  only  wished  to 
transfer  the  conversation  elsewhere.  She  felt  she  had  done  her 
duty,  in  what  she  would  not  have  hesitated  to  mention  in  Society  as 
"  goody  talk,"  when  she  executed  that  superb  entrechat,  so  to  speak, 
of  the  big  initial  W  of  "  Where."  She  had  done  her  duty,  and  had 
not  succeeded.  She  would  be  quite  justified  now  in  relaxing  from 
the  exalted  serenity,  tempered  with  due  humility,  of  a  spiritual  in- 
structress, and  referring  to  the  minor  consolations  of  this  earth. 
She  ignored  Jim's  exclamation,  and  continued  speaking  as  though 
her  last  sentence  had  been  completed. 

"  Besides,  in  a  very  little  while  you  will  be  able  to  have  Eliza 
Ann  back  again,  and  really  you'll  be  able  to  move  about  quite 
easily." 

Jim  laughed  out — a  big  hearty  laugh  of  contempt  for  any  mere 
personal  mishap  of  his  own.  "  I'll  have  the  less  weight  to  carry, 
sure ! "  he  said.  And  then  her  ladyship  looked  at  her  watch,  and 
asked  the  nurse  whether  that  clock  was  right ;  who  promptly  replied 
that  that  clock  was,  if  anything,  slow.  Seeing  the  good  effect  of 
which,  she  went  on  to  say  that  it  was  slower  still.  However,  this 
was  not  needed,  for  the  visitor  was  only  feeling  about  for  de- 
parture, which,  in  view  of  the  possible  indefinite  postponement  of 
Mr.  Taylor's  return,  was  given  up  with  insincere  professions  of 


220  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

regret  on  the  part  of  both,  and  Lady  Arkroyd  took  her  leave,  con- 
solable,  but  with  a  noble  sense  of  duty  done. 

"  The  master  be  coming  back,  though,  missis  .  .  .  ? n  Jim  asks 
anxiously  of  the  nurse. 

"  Oh,  yes,  he's  bound  to  come  back,  and  you  may  make  your  mind 
easy." 

When  Athelstan  Taylor  and  the  nurse  left  the  ward,  they  passed 
through  the  avenue  of  beds  in  the  adjoining  ward  without  speak- 
ing, and  into  a  lobby  beyond.  Then  the  nurse  stopped  and  spoke. 
"  This  is  a  bad  ward  that  we  are  going  to.  Perhaps  I  ought  to 
have  told  you  ? " 

"  You  are  going  there  yourself  ? " 

"  It  is  my  duty  to  go." 

"And  mine."  They  said  no  more,  but  no  more  was  necessary. 
It  was  a  little  way  further  that  they  had  to  go,  through  wards  and 
passages;  but  the  circumstances  did  not  seem  to  favour  chat.  Ar- 
riving at  the  door  of  the  ward,  Mr.  Taylor  turned  and  said :  "  This 
is  a  man,  is  it  not — this  patient — I  think  you  said?" 

"A  man.  The  case  developed  in  the  hospital.  He  was  brought 
in  as  sudden  paralysis.  He  has  been  here  a  month  or  more." 

"  Do  they  keep  cases  of  this  sort  so  long  ? " 

"  Not  always.  They  kept  this  one.  He  had  an  epileptic  seizure 

which  was  followed  by  torpor.  Dr.  thinks  now  that  the 

disease  has  affected  the  valves  of  the  heart.  He  might  die  sud- 
denly, at  any  moment.  When  I  told  him  so  to-day,  he  asked  to  see 
the  Chaplain,  Mr. .  He  and  all  his  family  have  mumps." 

A  young  doctor  was  in  the  ward,  who  said,  "Is  this  the  gen- 
tleman ? "  and  after  "  Yes "  from  the  nurse,  continued :  "  You 
mustn't  be  alarmed  at  our  precautions.  We  only  take  them  in 
order  to  be  on  the  safe  side."  The  precautions  which,  it  seemed, 
St.  Bride  insisted  on  for  all  who  should  enter  a  contagion-ward 
were  a  close  overall  of  some  germ-proof  canvas  or  linen,  and  thin, 
invulnerable  rubber  gloves.  Mr.  Taylor,  as  he  drew  them  on, 
shuddered  to  think  how  many  a  time,  conceivably,  they  might  have 
been  some  wearer's  only  safeguard  against  a  blasted  life,  and  the 
inheritance  of  a  dire  poison  by  generations  yet  unborn. 

When  he  was  safely  attired  in  them,  the  young  surgeon,  as  he 
conducted  him  through  the  ward,  said  in  reply  to  a  question: 
"  Oh  no ! — not  the  slightest  danger  from  the  breath.  You  may  be 
quite  happy  about  that.  Let  Sister  Martha  put  a  little  eau-de- 
Cologne  on  your  handkerchief.  This  is  your  man." 

This!    This   semi-mummy   that  is   little  else   than   bandages! 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  221 

This  thing,  at  least,  only  manifested  to  us,  otherwise,  as  an  ex- 
posed mouth;  or  what  was  a  mouth  and  is  an  orifice,  to  be 
identified  by  two  carious,  projecting  teeth;  or  as  the  nailless 
fingers  of  an  enclosed  hand,  escaping  from  its  wraps.  This,  it 
seems,  is  the  Rev.  Athelstan  Taylor's  man,  by  whom  he  takes  a 
chair  the  nurse  brings  him,  as  he  thinks  to  himself:  "My  man, 
thank  God,  not  Gus's !  "  For  his  invalid  friend  might  easily  have 
been  here  in  his  place,  and  could  he — poor  delicate  fellow! — have 
borne  the  awful  flavour  of  this  place,  breaking  through  all  anti- 
septic spray  and  palliation  of  ozone,  and  making  him,  himself, 
as  physically  sick  as  he  is  sick  at  heart  ?  "  Not  Gus's  man,  thank 
God !  At  least,  a  great  overgrown  giant  like  myself !  "  So  he 
thought  as  he  tried  to  catch  the  words  of  the  wretched  remnant 
on  the  bed  beside  him.  They  were  audible  only  by  him,  as  he 
stooped  resolutely,  brushing  all  caution  aside,  and  placed  his  ear 
close  to  the  dreadful  mouth.  It  needed  an  effort,  even  with  Sister 
Martha's  benediction  on  his  handkerchief. 

"What  is  my  name,  and  who  am  I?"  He  repeats  the 
•whispered  words  as  he  hears  them.  "I  am  Athelstan  Taylor,  a 
priest  in  holy  orders.  .  .  .  Yes — a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of 
England  .  .  .  yes! — I  understand  what  you  say.  You  have 
something  on  your  conscience  which  you  wish  to  tell.  Try  and 
tell  me." 

The  nurse  evidently  thinks  the  man  is  dying,  and  may  die  with- 
out receiving  the  Sacrament,  which  she  has  supposed  his  principal 
object.  She  makes  a  suggestion  to  that  effect.  But  Mr.  Taylor 
thinks  otherwise.  "  Presently !  "  he  says.  "  Let  him  tell  his  story 
first."  The  nurse  retires,  and  the  tale  goes  on. 

It  was  a  hard  tale  to  catch  the  threads  of.  But  its  hearer  was 
able  to  master  the  main  points.  The  narrator  had  married,  sixteen 
years  before,  a  very  young  and  inexperienced  girl,  unknown  to  her 
parents,  who  seemed  to  have  remained  in  ignorance  throughout. 
Even  when  he  deserted  her,  a  very  short  time  after  marriage,  she 
kept  her  secret  from  everyone  but  a  young  clerk,  a  friend  of  his 
own,  with  whom,  as  a  natural  consequence,  the  poor  girl,  apparently 
afraid  to  divulge  the  facts  to  her  family,  became  very  liee.  His 
story  was  obscure  at  this  point,  the  only  clear  thing  being  that,  in 
order  to  shake  her  off  and  remain  free  to  contract  another  marriage, 
he  had  written  a  mock  confession  to  this  young  man;  alleging,  on 
grounds  which  the  dying  man's  condition  prevented  his  explaining 
in  full,  that  the  wedding  had  been  really  a  fraud,  and  his  statement 
that  it  was  so  seemed  to  have  been  held  sufficient  by  the  girl.  The 
friend,  either  convinced  of  its  truth  or  in  love  with  the  girl  himself, 


222  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

had  accepted  it,  or  seemed  to  accept  it,  as  indisputable.  Was  it  to 
be  wondered  at  that,  when  she  returned  to  her  home  after  an  absence 
of  some  months,  with  nothing  to  show  that  this  concealed  marriage 
had  taken  place,  she  had  accepted  this  young  man  as  her  lover,  and 
married  him  with  the  full  consent  of  her  parents?  The  narrator 
had  clearly  foreseen  this,  and  looked  to  it  as  a  practical  release  from 
an  encumbrance.  His  own  subsequent  career  had  been  one  of 
profligacy  and  crime,  some  of  his  sins  being,  to  all  appearance,  far 
worse  than  this  one,  as  such  things  are  estimated;  one  achievement 
having,  in  fact,  procured  him  a  long  term  of  penal  servitude.  How 
strange  it  seemed  that  now,  with  the  hand  of  Death  upon  him,  he 
should  feel  the  lighter  offence  an  exceptional  weight  upon  his  con- 
science! Yet  so  it  was!  And  his  hearer  thought  he  could  detect 
the  relief  the  confession  had  given  him  in  the  changed  whisper  that 
followed  the  completion  of  his  story.  Mr.  Taylor  was  glad  that  the 
atrocity  that  sent  him  to  Portland  Island  was  not  specially  referred 
to  in  the  culprit's  final  inquiry — could  he  hope  for  forgiveness  ? 

"I  told  the  unhappy  creature,"  wrote  Athelstan  to  Gus,  in  the 
letter  he  wrote  that  evening,  "  that  his  chances  of  forgiveness  must 
depend  on  the  truth  or  falsehood  of  his  own  contrition,  and  I  am 
afraid  I  had  the  cruelty  to  say  it  with  some  severity.  You  know 
my  severe  manner.  But,  then,  it  was  true.  I'm  afraid,  Gus  dear, 
that  I  have  hardly  your  faith  in  the  efficacy  of  my  holy  office,  taken 
by  itself.  But  these  things  are  awful  to  face.  I  had  hardly  time 
to  fulfil  my  function  as  a  priest  when  the  poor  wretch  breathed  his 
last." 

It  was  at  that  last  moment  that  the  need  of  the  rubber  gloves 
became  manifest.  Just  at  the  end,  the  dreadful  nailless  hand, 
moving  painfully  about,  and  fraught  with  some  sudden  strength, 
had  caught  the  healthy  one  that  lay  near  it  on  the  coverlid,  and 
drew  it  up  to  touch  it  with  the  things  that  had  once  been  lips.  The 
young  doctor  seemed  relieved  when  he  had  himself  seen  the  priest 
in  holy  orders  well  drenched  in  water  with  strange  suspicions  of 
sanitation  in  it,  after  a  heart-felt  lather  of  carbolic  soap. 

When  the  Rev.  Athelstan  came  back  to  Jim's  bedside,  his  face  no 
longer  wore  its  cheerful  aspect  of  an  hour  ago.  In  that  short  time 
his  sad  experience — surely  something  more  than  a  mere  death- 
bed, such  as  his  daily  routine  of  life  brought  him  to  the  sight  of 
so  often ! — had  changed  it,  and  made  him  almost  like  another  man. 

"I'm  martnl  glad  ye've  come,  master,"  said  Jim.  And,  at  the 
sound  of  a  voice  with  a  memory  in  it  of  the  chant  the  windlass 
echoes  when  the  anchor  leaves  its  bed  in  the  sand,  and  the  last 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  223 

shore-boat  waves  God-speed  to  the  ship  set  free,  his  hearer  seemed 
to  shake  off  some  of  the  gloom  that  oppressed  him.  "  I'm  martal 
glad  to  see  ye  back,"  he  repeats,  "  by  token  of  the  good  lady." 

Athelstan  takes  the  hand  that  seeks  his.  "Why  the  good  lady, 
Jim  ?  "  he  says. 

"  Why,  master,  the  good  lady  she  says  to  me,  she  says,  did  I 
know  where  to  look  for  soomat  or  other  ?  Lard  knows  what !  And 
I  says  to  her,  '  Me  look ! '  I  says,  because  I  was  thinking  belike 
this  drawback  on  my  eyesight  might  have  slipped  out  of  mem- 
ory. .  .  ." 

"  Not  very  likely,  Jim !  But  if  it  did,  Lady  Arkroyd's  recollected 
it  by  now." 

"  Ye  think  so,  master  ?  But  put  it  she  hasn't !  I'd  be  sorry  she 
should  come  to  the  knowledge  late  in  the  day.  These  here  ladies, 
master,  they  ain't  a  rough  sart,  like  we" — this  did  not  mean  his 
hearer,  only  himself  and  his  congeners — "  and  she  might  easy  get 
tender-hearted  what  with  thinkin'  over.  And  I'd  never  be  the 
worse,  bless  you !  " 

"  /  see  what  you  mean,  Jim."  The  light  dawns ;  the  speaker  had 
been  till  then  in  the  dark.  He  has  a  laugh  ready  for  it,  as  he  adds : 
"You  thought  the  lady  would  be  unhappy  when  she  found  she'd 
been  talking  to  a  blind  man  about  his  eyesight  ?  Wasn't  that  it  ?  " 
That  was  it,  clearly.  But  Jim  discerns  a  justification  for  his  idea, 
when  he  learns  that  his  blindness  had  been  fully  talked  over. 

"  There's  just  what  I  said,  in  that,  ye  see !  "  says  he.  "  The  lady 
wouldn't  be  talking,  not  to  hurt  my  feelings!  Jim  Coupland's 
feelings  now !  .  .  .  where  are  we  at  that  ? "  They  seem  to  be  a 
rare  good  joke  to  Jim.  But  there  is  material  for  regret  in  the 
background.  "  'Tain't  a  matter  to  cry  one's  eyes  out  over,"  says  he, 
"  but  a  bit  of  a  pity,  too !  .  .  ." 

"What  is,  Jim?" 

"  If  I'd  kept  a  lookout  ahead,  I  could  have  steered  the  good  lady 
clear  of  any  fret  about  me  and  my  eyesight.  And  if  we'd  only  'a 
known,  I  might  'a  told  her  the  starry  o'  the  Flying  Dutchman — just 
for  entertainment  like !  A  yarn's  a  yarn,  master !  " 

Athelstan  Taylor  was  puzzled  on  his  way  home  by  the  curious 
selection  of  a  restless  conscience  as  aliment  for  disquiet.  But 
thinking  back  on  his  own  past,  he  found  that  his  disquiets  had  not 
been  about  his  mistakes  that  had  most  harmed  others.  Could  he  not 
remember  his  own  prolonged  remorse,  at  five  years  old,  when  an 
overtwist  brought  off  the  wooden  leg  of  a  minute  doll,  and  he  had 
the  meanness  to  put  the  limb  in  place,  and  leave  it,  sound  to  all 


224  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

seeming,  for  its  owner  to  discover  its  calamity  ?  And  how  he  never 
told  I  Even  now,  he  wished  he  had  confessed.  It  was  no  use  now ! 
The  sister  that  doll  had  belonged  to  had  been  dead  thirty  years,  and 
this  tale  he  had  just  heard  was,  so  he  gathered,  well  within  the  last 
twenty. 

He  was  wondering  that  evening,  after  writing  to  Gus,  whether 
his  friend,  whose  place  he  was  so  glad  to  occupy,  would  not  have 
raised  some  technical  difficulty  about  the  Administration  of  the 
Sacrament  in  rubber  gloves,  when  a  note  came  from  his  friend  the 
House  Surgeon.  Had  the  man  he  had  talked  with  given  his  name  ? 
It  appeared  that  the  name  entered  in  the  list  of  patients  was  an 
alias.  Probably  he  had  several  aliases.  But  he  had  a  right  to  be 
buried  and  registered  under  his  last  one.  A  line  by  return  would 
do.  The  letter  made  very  light  of  the  matter — said  the  deceased 
couldn't  have  had  any  property! 

Athelstan  Taylor's  reply  was  that  the  name  given,  as  far  as  he 
could  hear  it,  was  Edward  Kay  Thorne.  He  walked  out  and  posted 
it  himself,  as  the  servants  had  gone  to  bed.  He  posted  at  the  same 
time  his  letter  to  his  friend  Gus,  to  which  he  had  added  a  long  post- 
script about  the  events  of  the  day.  "  You  need  not  think,"  it  ended, 
"  that  I  have  broken  the  '  seal  of  the  confessional '  in  telling  this 
man's  story.  He  said  I  was  at  liberty  to  do  as  I  liked."  He  felt 
rather  glad  to  have  a  sharer  in  such  a  confidence.  Then  he  went 
back  to  his  comfortable  library,  put  coals  on  the  fire,  and  sat  up 
till  one  in  the  morning  reading. 


CHAPTER  XVm 

THAT  NASTY  LITTLE  STETHOSCOPE!  A  RETROSPECT  ABOUT  THE  RECTOR 
AND  MISS  FOSSETT.  A  TRANSACTION  IN  KISSES.  AUNT  STINGY's 
WEEDS,  AND  WHAT  A  GOOD  COOK  SHE  WAS 

THE  dead  drunkard's  funeral  expenses  had  been  made  condi- 
tional on  his  widow  postponing  her  visit  to  the  Hospital.  No 
doubt  the  stress  laid  by  Miss  Fossett  and  her  brother's  friend  on 
Jim's  unfitness  to  receive  visitors,  was  owing  to  their  desire  to 
justify  this.  It  is  fair  to  say  that  the  woman  spent  the  money 
honourably  on  its  assigned  object.  She  belonged  to  a  class  that 
expresses  its  emotions  in  the  presence  of  Death  by  the  celebration 
of  obsequies,  just  as  much  as  Kings  and  Princes — perhaps  even 
more,  considering  its  limitations.  The  classes  that  keep  funeral 
ecstasies  in  check  are  to  be  found  half-way  on  the  human  ladder, 
somewhere. 

The  object  of  using  the  power  thus  gained  was  not  so  much  to 
conceal  the  story  of  the  drunkard's  death — for  it  was  soon  clear 
that  Jim  would  not  be  injuriously  affected  by  hearing  of  that — as  to 
keep  from  him  that  Lizarann  was  the  worse  for  her  exposure  in  the 
snow  on  that  terrible  night.  It  appeared  to  Miss  Fossett  and  the 
Rev.  Athelstan — or  Yorick,  as  she  always  called  him  and  thought 
of  him — that  a  certain  amount  of  playing  double  was  justified  by 
the  circumstances.  It  might  have  been  a  very  serious  throwback 
to  Jim  to  know  that  his  little  lass  was  being  kept  away  from  him  by 
anything  but  his  own  wish  to  be  "  on  his  pins  again  "  next  time  he 
saw  her ;  and  he  held  on  so  stoically  to  his  resolution  not  to  see  her 
till  then  that  it  seemed  a  very  diluted  mendaciousness  to  say  no 
more  of  Lizarann's  health  than  that  she  had  caught  a  slight  cold, 
and  would  be  much  better  cared  for  at  the  schoolhouse  than  at  her 
aunt's — unless,  indeed,  Jim  especially  wished  Mrs.  Steptoe  to  have 
her  back.  Jim  didn't. 

"  She's  such  a  nice  little  girl  in  herself,  Yorick,"  said  Miss  Fos- 
sett a  fortnight  after  Lady  Arkroyd's  visit  to  the  Hospital,  "  that 
one  wishes  it  could  be  managed."  She  was  referring  to  a  sug- 
gestion her  ladyship  had  made. 

"  Does  one,  altogether  ? "  was  Yorick's  reply.    "  What  was  it  she 

225 


226  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

said  ? — '  Get  her  away  from  her  terrible  surroundings,  and  give  her 
a  chance  of  doing  well.'  Our  Baronetess  is  a  good-hearted  woman 
in  reality — with  a  little  flummery — only  she's  apt  to  be  taken  in  by 
sounding  phrases.  This  one  would  either  mean  taking  the  little 
person  away  from  her  Daddy,  or  else  getting  him  away  from  his 
terrible  surroundings.  Who's  to  do  it,  Addie?  You  would  shirk 
the  task  just  as  much  as  I,  if  you  knew  Jim." 

"  But  couldn't  he  be  got  away,  too  ? " 

"  Well ! — of  course,  I  was  thinking  of  that  as  impracticable  at  the 
moment." 

"But  is  it?" 

"Why — no!  It's  only  a  question  of  money.  Jim  would  be 
ductile  enough,  I  see  that.  I  suppose  I  should  be  right  in  getting 
Sir  Murgatroyd's  money  used  that  way  ? " 

"  Certainly.  He  has  twenty  thousand  a  year.  What  does  it 
matter?  One-pound-five  a  week  is  fifty-two  pounds  for  the  pound, 
and  thirteen  pounds  for  the  five  shillings — one-fourth  part.  Sixty- 
five  pounds !  Oh,  Yorick,  what  can  it  matter  ? " 

"  I  don't  know,"  says  Yorick.  He  is  one  of  those  rare  people  who 
don't  think  misappropriation  of  funds  grows  less  and  less  immoral 
in  the  inverse  ratio  of  the  one  borne  to  them  by  the  source  of  their 
supply. 

"  Well ! — I  dor  says  Miss  Fossett.  "  Sir  Murgatroyd  can  per- 
fectly well  afford  it." 

There  was  time  to  discuss  the  matter,  and  Yorick  and  Miss  Fos- 
sett did  so  at  intervals  during  the  weeks  that  followed.  Discussion 
of  any  project  favours  its  materialization,  which  often  comes  about 
more  because  it  is  kept  alive  than  in  consequence  of  any  agreement 
on  details  among  its  promoters.  The  idea  that  "  something  would 
have  to  be  done  "  about  Lizarann  and  her  Daddy  took  root  both  in 
Grosvenor  Square  and  the  neighbourhood  of  Tallack  Street,  and 
only  waited  for  Jim's  wooden  leg,  to  become  a  reality.  It  was  taken 
for  granted  that  Lizarann's  cough,  which  was  really  hardly  any- 
thing now,  would  be  quite  gone  by  then,  and  that  her  pulse  would  be 
normal.  Six  whole  weeks ! 

Meanwhile  Lizarann  herself  was  not  prepared  to  admit  there  was 
anything  the  matter  with  her.  She  secretly  regarded  the  whole 
thing  as  a  conspiracy  to  keep  her  away  from  her  Daddy — a  con- 
spiracy somehow  fostered  and  encouraged  by  Dr.  Ferris's  stetho- 
scope; but  not  one  to  be  denounced  and  rebelled  against,  because 
of  the  obviously  good  intentions  of  Teacher,  the  gentleman,  and 
the  doctor-gentleman.  It  wasn't  their  fault !  They  were  misled  by 
that  audacious  little  lying  pipe,  which  was  no  use  either  to  play 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  227 

upon  or  look  through,  and  yet  had  the  effrontery  to  pretend  you 
could  listen  with  it.  Absurd ! 

Other  forms  of  medical  investigation  she  regarded  as  games,  and 
resolved  that  when  she  and  her  Daddy  were  back  at  Aunt  Stingy's, 
she  was  going  to  ply  them  gymes  with  Bridgetticks.  She  would 
listen  to  Bridgetticks's  chest  with  a  hoopstick  many  a  day  when 
the  spring  came,  and  weather  permitted  doorsteps.  And  vice  versa; 
fair  play,  of  course !  And  she  would  get  her  down  flat,  and  put  one 
hand  on  lots  of  different  places  on  her  chest,  and  thud  it  unfairly 
hard  with  the  other,  and  say,  "  Does  that  hurt  you  ?  "  and  make  her 
draw  long  breaths.  She  accepted  diagnosis  as  human  and  lovable 
in  benefactors,  but  still  a  weakness,  and  a  sure  road  to  misappre- 
hension in  chest  cases. 

If  it  had  not  been  for  cod-liver  oil,  and  restraints,  and  mustard 
poultices  that  printed  her  small  chest  red,  she  would  have  regarded 
the  whole  thing  as  a  lark,  especially  in  view  of  the  banquets  that 
accompanied  it.  And  was  she  not  assured  that  Daddy  was  having 
the  same,  only  heaps  more?  The  oil  was  the  worst  trial.  It  pre- 
tended to  be  tasteless  certainly,  but  that  was  mere  pharmaceutical 
hypocrisy;  the  bottles  knew  better,  whatever  the  labels  might  say. 
Her  first  hearing  of  the  name  of  this  nasty  elixir  vitce  produced  a 
curious  confusion  in  her  mind,  the  revelation  of  which  shocked  Miss 
Fossett,  taxed  Yorick's  command  of  his  countenance,  and  made  the 
doctor  chuckle  at  intervals  all  the  way  home.  For  she  recalled  an 
occasion  on  which  the  Rev.  Wilkinson  Wilkins  had  denounced  "  un- 
godly livers."  Herein  lay  great  possibilities  of  misapprehension, 
and  Lizarann  was  not  slow  to  infer  that  cod-liver  oil  was  divine,  as 
opposed  to  some  still  worse  abomination  on  draught  in  the  opposite 
camp — devil  liver  oil,  perhaps ! 

The  foregoing  shows  to  what  an  extent  Teacher  had  turned  her 
residence  next  door  to  the  School  into  a  hospital  for  the  accom- 
modation of  this  case.  The  good-natured  lady  was  always  liable  to 
get  involved  in  the  fortunes  of  any  of  her  young  students,  and 
though  the  present  one  had  no  claim  on  her  that  a  hundred  others 
might  not  have  had,  she  was  no  doubt  a  lovable  child,  and  her 
courage  under  trial  had  fairly  engaged  the  affections  of  the  Rev. 
Athelstan.  Now  Yorick  had  always  been  an  idol  of  Adeline  For- 
sett's  from  the  day  when  he  was  first  introduced  to  her,  a  girl  his 
junior  in  years,  but  older  than  he  for  all  that,  as  an  Eton  friend 
to  whom  her  favourite  brother  probably  owed  his  life.  She  had 
been  much  in  his  confidence  in  the  years  that  followed;  had  been 
his  great  friend  and  adviser  all  through  his  Oxford  days;  had  sym- 
pathized with  him  in  all  his  youthful  love-affairs.  Why  it  was  in- 


228  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

variably  taken  for  granted  that  he  and  she  were  always  to  beat  up 
different  covers  for  a  lifelong  mate  it  would  have  been  difficult  to 
say.  But  so  it  was,  and  so  it  continued,  quite  to  the  seeming  satis- 
faction of  both.  She  remained  his  confidante  during  all  the  hesi- 
tations and  perplexities  of  his  courtship  of  Sophia  Caldecott,  while 
only  giving  a  qualified  approval  to  his  choice;  and  when  he  de- 
parted, beaming,  with  that  young  lady  on  a  wedding-tour,  she  hon- 
estly believed  that  her  own  burst  of  tears  as  soon  as  she  found  her- 
self, after  the  day's  excitement,  alone  with  her  sense  that  the  world 
had  got  empty  and  chill,  was  due  to  the  fact  that  Yorick  had  mar- 
ried, as  she  viewed  the  matter,  the  wrong  sister — Sophia  instead  of 
Elizabeth,  her  great  friend.  Sophia  was  the  pretty  one,  of  course ! 
But  men  were  blind! 

Adeline's  life  was  so  interwoven  with  that  of  a  brother  who,  she 
believed,  would  certainly  never  marry  that  she  looked  on  herself 
as  not  entered  for  the  race  of  life  at  all.  The  idea  held  her  with 
such  force  that  she  could  build  castles  in  the  air  for  a  bosom 
friend  without  a  suspicion  of  a  wish  for  self-election  to  their 
suzerainship.  Sophia — once  fourteen,  and  nothing — changed  into 
a  woman  and  captured  the  best  castle  for  herself.  Is  it  certain  that 
Elizabeth's  entry  into  that  castle  would  have  left  Adeline's  world  so 
much  less  empty  and  chill?  Who  can  say?  All  there  is  room  to 
tell  here  is  that  Sophia's  death  came  in  a  few  years;  and  that 
Adeline's  contemplation  of  Elizabeth's  instalment  as  Queen  Regent, 
without  rights  of  coronation,  was  productive  of  involutions  of 
thought  and  feeling  that  would  have  baffled  Robert  Browning.  She 
was  glad  to  believe  she  believed  her  secret  grief  that  Yorick  and 
Elizabeth  could  never  be  man  and  wife  genuine.  Perhaps  it  was. 

Very  likely  the  readiness  of  Miss  Fossett  to  harbour  and  cherish 
Lizarann  does  not  want  such  an  elaborate  explanation.  Lizarann, 
as  the  story  has  shown,  was  far  from  being  an  unattractive  scrap  in 
herself,  although  the  mouth  was  too  large  for  beauty — no  doubt  of 
it  I  She  was  especially  so  in  these  well-washed  days  when  Miss  Fos- 
sett went  after  her  own  very  early  breakfast  to  wake  her  in  the 
morning;  or,  if  awake,  to  prevent  her  trying  to  get  up  before  Dr. 
Ferris  came. 

"Maten't  I  go  to  see  Daddy  to-day,  Teacher?"  she  said — always 
the  first  question — one  such  morning  about  a  month  after  her  ap- 
propriation by  Miss  Fossett. 

"Maten't  you — funny  child!  Mayn't  you's  what  you  mean. 
No,  dear,  you  mayn't — not  yet!  No  till  Dr.  Ferris  says  yes.  You 
must  be  a  good  little  girl  and  have  patience."  For  Miss  Fossett 
knew  children  too  well  to  weep  with  them  invariably  in  their 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

troubles.  Here  was  one  that  would  bear  a  bracing  treatment.  Its 
effect  this  time  was  that  a  sob  never  came  to  maturity — was 
resolutely  swallowed — and  that  the  career  of  a  couple  of  tears  was 
nipped  in  the  bud  by  a  nightgown-sleeve.  A  sniff  made  a  protest 
in  their  favour,  but  cut  a  poor  figure.  Courage  had  the  best  of  it. 

"  Mustn't  I  only  send  a  kiss  to  Daddy,  Teacher  ? "  Lizarann 
says  this  very  ruefully. 

"  Teacer ! "  Miss  Fossett  mimics  her  pronunciation.  "  Of 
course  you  may,  dear,  as  many  as  you  like !  You  give  them  to  me, 
and  I'll  see  that  Daddy  gets  them."  This  is  very  rash,  as  Lizar- 
ann springs  like  a  tiger,  and  discharges  a  volley  that  would  have 
kept  a  game  of  kiss-in-the-ring  going  for  a  fortnight.  An  evil, 
you  will  say,  easily  endurable  by  a  childless  woman,  with  perhaps 
a  hungry  heart!  Agreed.  But  embarrassing  complications  fol- 
lowed. As  soon  as  Lizarann,  who  was  evidently  going  to  be  much 
better  to-day,  had  disposed  of  a  very  respectable  breakfast  for  an 
invalid,  and  was  brought  into  good  form  to  receive  the  doctor — she 
was  very  nice  when  she  smelt  of  soap,  was  Lizarann — her  mind 
harked  back  on  the  kissing  transaction. 

"  Who  shall  you  give  the  skisses  to,  to  tike  to  Daddy  ? " 

"  Never  you  mind !  Daddy  shall  get  them,  and  that's  enough  for 
any  little  girl  at  this  time  in  the  morning.  Now  lie  still  and  be 
good.  There's  Dr.  Ferris's  knock." 

Lizarann  complied.  But  curiosity  rankled.  Would  Miss  Fos- 
sett entrust  those  kisses  to  Dr.  Ferris  to  give  to  Daddy?  That 
was  the  substance  of  the  question  that  came  in  perfect  good 
faith  from  the  pillow  Lizarann  was  lying  still  and  being  good  on. 
And  this  with  Dr.  Ferris  audible  below! 

"Most  certainly  not!  I  don't  know  him  well  enough."  This 
was  very  decisive;  and  Lizarann's  impersonal  mind  discerned  in 
it  a  mistrust  of  the  goods  reaching  their  destination.  Dr.  Ferris 
might  give  them  to  someone  else.  Another  carrier  must  be 
found. 

"  But  you  do  the  gentleman  ? " 

"Yes,  of  course!  I  could  give  them  to  the  gentleman.  But 
we'll  do  better  than  that,  Lizarann.  I'll  give  them  back  to  you,  and 
you'll  give  them  to  the  gentleman."  An  arrangement  that  pleases 
Lizarann,  whose  allegation  that  there  was  siskteen,  makes  the  re- 
fund a  long  job.  It  lasts  till  the  doctor  knocks  at  the  room  door. 

"Who  were  you  talking  to,  Doctor?"  Lizarann's  tickle  is  still 
on  the  speaker's  face,  as  she  smooths  matters — hair  and  such-like. 

"It's  the  aunt,  Widow  Steptoe.  ..." 

"  Do  take  care,  Doctor ! " 


230  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Oh — I  forgot !  It's  all  right,  I  think,  though  .  .  .  she  wants 
a  testimonial,  to  say  she  can  cook.  She  can't,  of  course!  How's 
the  patient  ? " 

"  Look  and  see !  I  suppose  I  must  see  Mrs.  Steptoe.  She  wants 
to  talk,  you  know.  I  could  just  as  easily  write  to  this  Mrs.  What's- 
her-name  ...  oh  yes;  I  know  who  it's  for  ...  as  have  a  long 
talkee-talkee.  If  she  keeps  me,  come  in  as  you  go,  to  tell  me." 

There  is  a  twofold  advantage  in  the  loss  of  a  husband  who  is  a 
curse  to  your  existence — who  is  bone  of  your  bone  and  flesh  of  your 
ilesh,  with  all  the  disadvantages  of  a  community  of  goods,  such  as 
"was  endured  by  Zohak  the  tyrant,  who  shared  his  with  two  serpents 
that  had  grown  out  of  him,  and  partook  of  him  at  intervals.  One 
gain  is,  that  your  husband  is  now  no  more — as  the  vernacular  puts 
it  when  not  claiming  various  forms  of  hereafters  for  the  departed ; 
the  other,  that  we  may  now  mourn  his  loss  and  ascribe  beauties  of 
character  to  him  without  fear  of  his  coming  to  life  to  give  them 
practical  disclaimers.  We  can  do  it  with  crape,  and  if  we  can't  af- 
ford a  pair  of  black  kids,  Lisle  thread  lasts  a  long  time,  if  wore 
careful;  indeed,  Mrs.  Hacker,  whose  testimony  we  are  quoting, 
was  able  to  dwell  on  the  cheapness  of  job-lots  in  the  article  of 
mourning,  and  the  advantages  we  enjoy  from  sales — advantages  un- 
known to  Zohak  in  his  day;  only  perhaps  his  snakes  outlived  him. 
If  they  did,  there  can  have  been  no  false  note  in  the  pathos  with 
•which  they  spoke  of  him  as  "  now  no  more." 

Mrs.  Steptoe,  having  been  so  liberally  assisted  towards  funeral 
expenses,  had  been  able  to  enjoy  herself  thoroughly  over  the  mil- 
linery department.  Even  Bridgetticks  had  been  impressed  by  the 
respectability  of  her  appearance.  Tallack  Street  felt  it,  and  joined 
in  tributes  to  the  moral  qualities  of  Mr.  Steptoe.  It  did  not  shut 
its  eyes  to  his  failing,  but  rather  utilized  it  to  the  advantage  of  his 
memory,  sketching  an  exalted  character  that  he  would  certainly 
have  possessed  if  it  had  not  been  undermined  by  his  unfortunate 
propensity.  Each  male  inhabitant  of  Tallack  Street  could  con- 
scientiously call  upon  all  his  neighbours  to  bear  witness  to  the  many 
times  he  had  dwelt  on  what  a  good,  honest,  generous,  trustworthy 
nature  underlay  this  unfortunate  proclivity  to  drinking  spirits 
continually,  during  waking  hours,  whenever  he  had  a  trup'ny  bit 
left,  or  could  get  credit,  or  stood  treat  to.  All  agreed  to  regard 
it  as  a  sort  of  involuntary  habit,  like  blinking;  or  at  worst  a  flaw 
in  culture — like  eating  peas,  or  the  butter,  with  the  blade  of  your 
knife.  "  The  man  he  was,  be'ind  it  all !  " — that  was  what  Tallack 
Street  looked  at.  The  Philosopher  might,  if  Time  permitted,  have 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  231 

exclaimed:  " De  non  apparentibus  et  non  existentibus  eadem  est 
ratio!"  Tallack  Street  would  have  replied,  forcibly  as  we  think, 
that  it  warn't  messin'  about  with  any  blooming  reasonings — only 
turning  of  it  over  like. 

But  we  doubt  if  Tallack  Street  would  have  recognized  Uncle 
Bob's  virtues  so  readily  if  his  widow's  grief  had  been  less  effectively 
shown. 

Her  mourning  gownd  was  that  respectable  to  look  at  you  couldn't 
'ardly  tell  her  for  Mrs.  Steptoe,  goin'  along  the  street,  or  in  at  the 
butcher's.  Whereat  Tallack  Street  shook  its  heads,  and  accepted 
the  past  as  a  lesson  for  the  future,  its  older  ones  saying  to  its 
younger  ones:  "Pore  Bob!  What  did  I  tell  you,  N.  or  M.,  con- 
cernin'  of  small  goes  of  gin  took  at  all  hours  and  no  sort  o'  sys- 
tem ?  "  The  tone  of  melancholy  forgiving  retrospect  being  entirely 
a  reaction  produced  by  the  correct  attire  of  the  widow. 

The  same  influence  made  Miss  Fossett  believe,  for  the  moment, 
that  Mrs.  Steptoe  could  cook,  for  all  Dr.  Ferris  said.  She  wrote  a 
testimonial  for  her  which  suggested  that  behind  the  good  plain- 
cooking  accomplishment,  as  scheduled,  were  unexplored  possibil- 
ities this  candidate  for  a  place  would  not  lay  claim  to,  from  mod- 
esty. But  for  the  applicant's  decent  gown  and  gloves  and  new  um- 
brella, she  would  have  thought  nothing  of  her  account  of  her  cook- 
ing powers,  as  shown  many  years  since  in  the  early  days  of  her  mar- 
riage, in  certain  apartments  at  Ramsgate,  where  her  husband  then 
worked,  before  they  came  to  London.  She  had  then  cooked  a  din- 
ner for  ten  persons,  with  entrees  and  sweets.  Miss  Fossett  hesi- 
tated, metaphorically,  to  swallow  this  dinner — tried  to  persuade 
Mrs.  Steptoe  to  reduce  it  to  eight.  That  good  woman,  however,  on 
taxing  her  memory,  rather  showed  a  disposition  to  increase  it  to 
twelve.  On  which  Miss  Fossett  surrendered  at  discretion. 

"  Of  course  you'll  soon  get  your  hand  back  again,  Mrs.  Steptoe ; 
and  I  hope  you'll  get  this  place."  At  this  point  the  character  was 
written,  with  a  full  certificate  of  the  circumstances.  It  seemed 
worded  to  convey  that  a  female  cordon  bleu,  who  had  been  seeing 
better  days,  had  been  forced  by  ill-hap  to  resume  her  old  role  of 
life.  Completing  it,  Miss  Fossett  again  spoke :  "  Where  did  you 
say  you  were  in  service,  Mrs.  Steptoe  ?  Ramsgate  ? " 

"  Not  exactly  in  service,  miss." 

"What,  then?" 

"  In  apartments  to  let"  Mrs.  Steptoe  seemed  a  little  uncertain ; 
like  a  respectable  person  telling  fibs,  and  in  a  difficulty.  Then  she 
saw  her  way,  and  went  on,  relieved.  "  I  was  requested  to  it,  as  a 
faviour.  Owing  to  landlady  indisposed — having  known  her  from 


232 

«arly  childhood."  She  was  proud  of  this  expression  evidently. 
"By  the  name  of  Cantrip.  I  was  left  in  charge,  and  give  every 
satisfaction.  Thirty-two,  Sea  View  Terrace,  on  the  clift." 

"  And  the  lodgers  had  ten  people  at  dinner !  "  Miss  Fossett  was 
surprised,  and  showed  it.  The  image  her  mind  formed  of  thirty- 
two,  Sea  View  Terrace,  did  not  jump  with  a  dinner  of  ten  persons, 
with  entrees  and  sweets.  But  was  it  reasonable  in  not  doing  so? 
Mrs.  Steptoe  must  have  appreciated  the  difficulty,  for  she  threw  in, 
"  Did  you  know  the  house,  miss  ? "  and  the  question  was  skilful. 
Miss  Fossett  admitted  that  she  did  not.  "  But  I  certainly  thought 
it  seemed  a  large  party  for  a  lodging-house,"  said  she,  feeling 
apologetic.  She  did  not  wish  to  be  unjust,  even  to  a  lodging- 
house. 

Mrs.  Steptoe  was  all  amazement  that  the  extensive  accom- 
modation of  Sea  View  Terrace  should  be  unknown  anywhere  in 
Europe.  Her  desire  to  express  it  seemed  to  expand  beyond  diction- 
aries. Her  sakes — why,  a  many  more  could  have  sat  down !  She 
then  went  on  to  substantiate  her  statement,  giving  the  names  of  the 
guests :  "  There  was  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallock  and  family  was  five, 
staying  in  the  apartments.  And  Mrs.  Bridgman  and  her  daugh- 
ter was  seven.  And  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Thome,  and  Mr.  Rollings — no! 
— Harris,  a  young  gentleman  from  town.  Countin'  up  to 
ten ! "  Mrs.  Steptoe  was  triumphant.  Such  detail  would  verify 
anything. 

"  Well ! — anyhow,  there's  the  letter,  Mrs.  Steptoe,  and  I  hope 
you'll  get  the  place  and  do  well."  Miss  Fossett  was  convinced  the 
good  woman  had  been  lying,  more  or  less ;  and  so  she  had,  but  the 
only  portion  of  her  statement  that  affects  this  story  was  true 
enough.  She  had  relieved  her  conscience  about  the  fib  that  she 
had  cooked  this  dinner  by  giving  the  actual  names  of  those  who 
had  eaten  it  as  nearly  as  she  remembered  them.  Can  we  not  sym- 
pathize with  her  ?  Are  we  not  human  ? 

She  took  the  letter  with  abasement  and  deep  gratitude,  neither 
altogether  unconnected  with  a  religious  fog,  unexplained,  hanging 
about  the  memory  of  her  lamented  husband.  She  inquired  after 
her  brother — was  looking  forward  to  seeing  him  on  Friday,  the  next 
visiting-day  at  the  Hospital — understood  he  had  asked  for  her  to 
come,  with  a  distinct  implication  that  his  nature  was  a  neglectful 
one,  and  that  she  was  negletced. 

"  He  has  asked  for  you  several  times,"  said  Miss  FosseiL1  *'  But 
Mr.  Taylor  thought — so  did  I — that  it  would  be  best  for  him  to 
know  nothing  of  your  husband's  death  till  he  was  stronger.  He 
puts  it  down  to  the  Hospital  regulations — thinks  you  have  not  been 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  233 

admitted.  Mr.  Taylor  will  tell  him  alf  about  it  before  you  see 
him." 

"  As  you  and  the  gentleman  think  beet,  miss !  And  the  little 
girl,  you  was  a-sayin',  is  better?" 

"  The  little  girl  is  a  great  deal  better.  Wait  a  minute,  and  I'll 
ask  Dr.  Ferris  if  he  thinks  you  could  see  her." 

Mrs.  Steptoe,  who  was  quite  able  to  keep  her  anxiety  to  see  her 
niece  in  due  subordination,  dwelt  upon  her  unwillingness  to  en- 
croach on  Miss  Fossett's  time.  Who,  accounting  these  professions 
honest — which  they  weren't — went  away  and  met  the  doctor  com- 
ing down.  He  had  been  a  long  time  over  his  patient,  she  re- 
marked. "  This  patient,"  said  he,  "  is  good  company.  Glad  to 
say  she's  going  on  capitally.  Temperature  all  but  normal." 

"  That  aunt-woman's  here  still."  Miss  Fossett  drops  her  voice  to 
say  this.  "  Could  I  take  her  up  to  see  her  safely,  do  you  think  ? " 

"  Can  you  be  sure  she  won't  talk  about  her  conf  .  .  .  about  her 
husband,  I  mean  ?  " 

"  Ye-es !     I  think  so,  if  she  promises.    I  don't  know." 

"  It  can't  do  any  great  harm,  in  any  case.  The  child  is  thinking 
of  nothing  but  Daddy.  Five  past  nine — oh  dear !  I'm  off  ...  oh 
yes ! — you  may  try  it."  And  off  goes  the  doctor. 

As  to  Lizarann's  interview  with  her  aunt  that  followed,  a  few 
words  will  be  enough.  For  no  story  can  record  everything  every- 
where closely ;  it  must  take  and  reject.  It  was,  on  the  part  of  Aunt 
Stingy,  an  unpresumptuous  interview,  fraught  with  meek  re- 
minders to  little  girls  of  what  was.  due  on  their  part  towards  their 
benefactors;  as  also  with  suggestions  of  the  depravities  inherent 
in  all  their  species.  An  interview  mysteriously  saturated  with  a 
sense  of  religious  precepts  refrained  from,  but  conferring  a  sense  of 
moral  superiority  in  one  who  could,  had  she  chosen,  have  become 
a  well-spring  and  fountain-head  of  little-girl-crushing  platitudes. 
On  Lizarann's  part,  an  interview  with  a  background  of  indict- 
ments against  herself  undisclosed  connected,  no  doubt,  somehow 
with  her  demeanour  on  the  terrible  occasion  when  she  saw  her  aunt 
and  uncle  last  She  dared  not  ask  what  she  had  done,  preferring  to 
refer  her  blood-guiltiness — of  which,  as  a  general  rule,  she  enter- 
tained no  doubt — in  this  case  to  the  lucifer-match  negotiation 
which  had  induced  Uncle  Bob  to  leave  hold.  That  seemed  more 
likely  than  that  she  had  left  the  street-door  stood  on  the  jar.  Of 
course,  she  might  have  been  convicted  of  concealed  chestnuts;  or 
even,  by  some  necromancy,  Aunt  Stingy  might  have  divined  how 
near  she  had  felt  to  passing  the  forbidden  Vatted  Rum  Corner 
limit  But  the  lucifer-match  theory  seemed  the  most  probable — 


234  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

not  to  be  broached,  however,  without  the  gentleman  himself  there 
to  protect  her.  Teacher  was  good — angelic,  indeed — but  she  was 
uninformed.  And  who  could  say  that  the  evil  plausibilities  of  a 
subtle  human  aunt  might  not  persuade  her  to  turn  against  her 
protegee,  and  rend  her?  However,  the  question  was  not  raised, 
and  Lizarann  felt  grateful  when  the  said  aunt  departed,  after  a 
horny  farewell  peck. 

But  as  soon  as  she  had  departed,  Lizarann  became  suddenly 
talkative.  "  Is  Aunt  Stingy's  new  gownd  pide  for  ? "  said  she. 

"  Inquisitive  little  monkey !  "  said  Teacher.  "  Perhaps  it  is ;  per- 
haps it  isn't." 

"What  did  it  costited?"  asked  Lizarann.  But  she  was  really 
uninterested  about  the  purchase.  She  was  keeping  the  question 
before  the  House  in  the  hope  that  the  debate  would  throw  a  light 
on  a  collateral  point.  "  Mrs.  Hacker's  married  daughter  Sarah  was 
a  widow,"  said  she,  to  give  the  conversation  a  lift.  "  She  wore  her 
cloze  out,  she  did." 

But  why  had  widowhood  come  suddenly  on  the  tapis  ?  Evidently 
sharp  ears  had  heard  the  doctor's  indiscreet  speech.  Miss  Fossett 
grasped  the  position.  Lizarann  would  have  to  know  some  time. 
Why  not  now? 

"  Poor  Aunt  Stingy !  "  She  spoke  with  her  eye  on  Lizarann,  on 
the  watch  for  a  guess  on  the  child's  part  that  would  assist  dis- 
closure. She  saw  in  the  large  puzzled  orbs  that  met  hers,  and  the 
small  hands  pulling  nervously  at  the  sheet,  that  the  idea  she  wanted 
was  either  dawning  or  fructifying.  She  continued :  "  Aunt  Stingy 
will  have  to  be  a  widow  now,  Lizarann." 

The  idea  had  taken  hold,  and  another  young  mind  that  up  to  that 
moment  had  looked  on  Death  as  a  visitor  to  other  families,  not 
hers,  had  got  to  face  the  black  terror — just  as  terrible  a  mys- 
tery, just  as  cold  a  cloud,  when  that  which  dies  is  what  none  would 
wish  should  live,  as  when  all  worth  living  for  seems  lost  with  it. 
Even  the  opportune  removal  of  an  Uncle  Bob  turns  the  whole 
world  into  an  antechamber  of  the  great  Unknown,  and  veils  the  sun 
in  heaven.  Nobody  had  died,  in  Lizarann's  immediate  circle,  so 
far,  and  as  for  outsiders  that  was  their  look  out !  Uncle  Bob  wasn't 
wanted  certainly,  rather  the  reverse ;  but  none  the  less  the  two  large 
eyes  that  were  fixed  on  Miss  Fossett's  informing  face  filled  slowly 
with  tears,  and  their  small  owner's  hands  came  out  towards  her, 
feeling  for  something  to  cry  on.  Yes! — Uncle  Bob  was  dead,  and 
would  never  mend  any  more  boots;  thus,  substantially,  the  testi- 
mony of  Teacher,  confirming  and  amplifying  the  deluge  that  fol- 
lowed. It  was  some  time  before  mere  awe  of  Death  allowed  Lizar- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  235 

ann  to  refer  to  the  fact  that  Daddy  would  never  enjoy  Uncle  Bob's 
society  again ;  there  may  have  been  ambiguity  here — was  it  all  un- 
mixed disadvantage? — and  still  longer,  quite  late  in  the  day,  in 
fact,  before  her  reflections  reminded  her  that  Mrs.  Hacker's  mar- 
ried daughter  Sarah,  having  wore  her  cloze  out,  took  up  with  Mr. 
Brophy,  her  present  husband.  A  reminiscence  evidently  recording 
the  exact  language  of  older  persons  than  herself. 

"  What  did  you  say  was  the  name  of  that  gentleman  you  met  at 
Royd,  Yorick? — the  amusing  one?  ..." 

"Brownrigg?" 

"  No— the  other." 

"  Challis." 

"  The  same  name  as  the  author  ? " 

"  He  is  the  author.  Titus  Scroop  is  his  nom-de-plume.  Why  do 
you  ask  ? " 

"  Because  it  must  be  his  wife  I  wrote  Mrs.  Steptoe's  character 
for  last  week.  Mrs.  Alfred  Challis,  The  Hermitage,  Wimbledon." 

"  Oh  yes — that  would  be.    How  did  you  know  of  her  ?  " 

"  That  Mrs.  Eldridge — she's  a  sort  of  cousin,  you  know — wrote  to 
see  if  I  knew  of  a  cook." 

"  But  you  knew  nothing  about  Mrs.  Steptoe's  cooking." 

u  No — but  she  can  try." 

"  I  don't  call  that  conscientious." 

"  Oh,  my  dear  Yorick  ?  Isn't  that  just  like  you  now  I  If  every- 
one was  such  a  dragon,  no  one  would  ever  do  a  good-natured  ac- 
tion." 

"  Was  it  good-natured— to  Mrs.  Challis?" 

"  It  may  turn  out  so.    Mrs.  Steptoe  may  be  a  real  treasure." 

The  above  is  short  and  explains  itself.  The  time  of  it  may  have 
been  three  days  after  the  previous  story  time. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

HOW  AUNT  STINGY  BECAME  MARIANNE'S  COOK.  A  MOST  OFFENSIVE 
BIBLE  CLASS.  MR.  CHALLIS's  JUDITH.  ESTRILD  AND  THE  OSTROGOTHS. 
THE  ACROPOLIS  CLUB 

IT  was  certainly  our  friend  Marianne  at  the  Hermitage,  Wim- 
bledon, to  whom  Mrs.  Steptoe,  now  a  free-lance,  was  going  to  apply 
for  a  cook's  place.  It  was  rather  an  audacious  piece  of  effrontery; 
so  also  are  two-thirds  of  the  applications  the  Registry  sends  you 
on,  and  charges  you  five  shillings  for.  Mrs.  Steptoe  was  a  very 
poor  cook  indeed ;  but,  then,  it  was  so  long  since  she  done  any  cook- 
ing reg'lar  that  it  was  easy  for  her  to  forget  how  poor  it  had 
been. 

The  coincidence  was  not  a  miraculous  one,  and  it  will  not  appear 
so  if  you  will  image  to  yourself  Mrs.  Charlotte  Eldridge  coming 
down  very  late  one  morning  and  opening  letters.  Further,  imagine 
that  the  contents  of  one  takes  her  aback,  binds  her  attention,  and 
excites  a  sort  of  torpid  curiosity  in  Mr.  John  Eldridge,  who  is  just 
off  to  catch  his  train ;  but  the  nine  thirty-eight  will  do  if  he  misses 
it.  Then  that  the  lady  throws  the  letter  down,  and  says :  "  Well,  I 
declare !  Elizabeth  Barclay,  of  all  people  in  the  world !  " 

Don't  try  to  imagine  Mr.  Eldridge,  nor  his  hat,  nor  its  band,  nor 
the  woollen  comforter  he  buttons  his  coat  over.  It  isn't  worth  the 
effort.  But  take  the  story's  word  for  it  that  he  said  "Elizabeth 
Barclay?"  six  times,  and  ended  with,  "What's  she  been  had  up 
for?" 

"  John,  you're  a  fool !  She's  Marianne's  cook,  and  she  wants  me 
to  find  her  another.  Of  course ! " 

"  But  what's  her  game  ?  What's  Marianne's  cook's  little  game  ? 
What's  she  been  a-takin'  shares  in?  Where's  she  been  selling  her 
dripping  to  ?  Tell  away,  Lotty ! — spit  it  out !  "  But  he  does  not 
forward  matters,  for  he  again  says  "Elizabeth  Barclay"  several 
times,  and  finishes  up  with  "  Well ! " 

"  When  you've  done."  A  pause.  "  She's  going  to  marry  a  corn- 
factor." 

Mr.  Eldridge  closes  one  eye.  "Females  do,"  he  says;  and  then 
adds,  quite  inexplicably:  "I  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  was  in  the 
Brixton  Road." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  237 

"  It  doesn't  matter  whether  he  is  or  isn't.  The  question  is,  where 
am  I  to  go  to  find  a  really  good  plain  cook  for  Marianne  ? " 

"  Ah !— that's  the  question." 

"  Well,  but  you  might  help,  instead  of  looking  like  a  gaby." 

"  Why  not  ask  that  party  ? " 

"What  party?" 

"  Over  Clapham  way.  Some  connection.  Where  you  got  Ellen 
Sayce,"  Mrs.  Eldridge  looks  her  despair,  for  was  not  Ellen  Sayce 
a  girl  who  wept  on  the  stairs  instead  of  doing  them  down,  and  had 
to  return  to  her  parents?  Nevertheless  the  attempt  was  worth  a 
postcard,  which  was  written  as  Mr.  Eldridge — whose  peritonitis 
had  gone — trotted  away  down  a  snow-swept  footway  slapping  his 
gloves,  and  saying  "Elizabeth  Barclay"  at  intervals.  But  she 
omitted  the  date,  as  she  decided  not  to  post  it  then  and  there,  but  to 
exhaust  her  other  resources  first.  Ellen  Sayce  was  a  poor  result. 

The  consequence  of  this  was  that  for  a  month  or  thereabouts 
Mr.  Eldridge  was  never  without  a  topic  of  conversation,  frequently 
calling  attention  to  the  unborn  postcard  in  a  recess  on  his  wife's 
escritoire.  "  1  say,  Lotty,  when's  Miss  Fossijaw's  letter  a-going  ?  " 
being  his  form  of  query,  connecting  the  matter  in  hand  with  phos- 
phorus-poisoning, humorously  but  not  intelligently. 

However,  when  Mrs.  Eldridge's  other  presentments  ran  dry,  the 
postcard  was  despatched,  and  reached  Adeline  Fossett  just  the  mo- 
ment after  Mrs.  Steptoe  had  been  submitting  her  cookworthiness, 
and  lodging  her  claims  for  favourable  consideration.  Whereupon 
Miss  Fossett  despatched  a  summons  to  her  to  come  next  day  for  a 
written  character  (which  would  do  in  this  case),  and  the  events  we 
know  of  followed.  There  was  nothing  remarkable  in  the  coinci- 
dence whatever. 

But  there  was  something  very  remarkable — so  Mrs.  Challis  had 
thought — about  Elizabeth  Barclay's  unaccountable  desire  to  marry 
a  corn-factor,  after  being  in  the  family  fourteen  years!  For  the 
Challis  family  had  monopolized  Mrs.  Barclay  during  the  whole  of 
that  time,  and  it  was  natural  it  should  be  indignant  at  her  deser- 
tion. In  fact,  Marianne  had  hardly  been  able  to  believe  her  ears 
when  one  day  the  good  woman,  who  had  been  very  distraite  over 
the  ordering  of  dinner,  took  advantage  of  its  conclusion  to  say, 
through  huskiness  and  hesitation,  that  she  had  been  thinking  it  well 
over,  and  had  decided  on  it,  in  spite  of  her  attachment  to  the  fam- 
ily and  heartfelt  desire  to  cause  it  no  inconvenience.  Being 
pressed  to  say  what  she  had  decided  on — which  she  had  not  so 
far  mentioned — she  had  turned  the  colour  of  a  tomato,  and  with  a 
determined  rush  had  said :  "  I  have  decided,  ma'am,  to  change  my 


238  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

condition,"  and  had  then  revealed  the  corn-factor  with  such  a  tre- 
mendous accent  on  his  first  syllable  that  an  impression  followed  it 
in  the  mind  of  Bob  Challis,  the  boy,  home  for  the  holidays,  that 
factors  of  many  other  goods  had  been  under  consideration,  and  that 
Mr.  Soul  had  been  the  fortunate  candidate.  For  his  name  was 
actually  Seth  Soul. 

This,  of  course,  was  at  the  Christmas  following  Challis  pere's 
visit  to  Royd.  But  Mrs.  Barclay  had  kept  her  condition  unchanged 
for  the  time  being,  to  oblige  Miss  Marianne,  which  was  how  she  as 
often  as  not  spoke  of  Mrs.  Challis.  That  lady  had  really  exerted 
herself  to  find  a  substitute,  any  plausible  application  having  been 
referred  for  settlement  to  the  corn-factor's  fiancee.  That  very 
honest  woman  had  denounced  and  rejected  every  candidate  for  the 
place  so  far.  She  applied  the  same  formula  to  all :  "  It  don't  speak 
much  for  her  " — that  there  was  such  a  flaw  in  her  register,  or  such 
a  defect  in  her  demeanour.  It  didn't  speak  much  for  one  that  she 
had  just  taken  a  twelvemonth's  leisure  at  a  relative's;  or  for  an- 
other that  she  smelt  of  spirits  at  that  time  in  the  morning;  or  for 
another  that  she  nearly  came  tumblin'  down  the  kitchen  flight,  and 
couldn't  walk  straight.  It  certainly  didn't.  But  it  spoke  vol- 
umes for  Mrs.  Barclay's  integrity  that  she  rejected  them  all,  when, 
by  accepting  one,  she  might  have  flown  straight  to  the  corn-factor 
and  nested  under  his  wing,  the  minute  her  things  were  got. 

The  acceptance  of  our  friend  Aunt  Stingy  was  the  result  of 
desperation,  as  we  have  hinted,  on  Mrs.  Challis's  part.  However, 
to  do  her  justice,  she  tried  to  shift  the  responsibility  off  her  own 
shoulders. 

"  I  should  not  have  dared  to  send  her  packing  after  what  you  said 
this  morning,  Titus,"  said  she;  scarcely,  perhaps,  quite  fairly.  But 
Titus  replied  good-humouredly — for  think  how  well  that  chapter 
had  started ! — "  Never  mind,  Polly  Anne !  I'll  be  responsible. 
She'll  turn  out  all  right  enough,  I  dare  say." 

And  thus  it  had  come  about  that  Mrs.  Steptoe  found  herself, 
within  six  weeks  of  her  husband's  death,  in  a  situation  where,  al- 
though its  standard  of  cooking  was  no  better  than  that  of  most 
English  houses  of  the  same  type,  she  was  hard  put  to  it  to  keep  up 
the  pretence  of  any  knowledge  at  all.  A  very  slight  early  experi- 
ence had  to  go  a  long  way,  and  detection  and  conviction  would  have 
ensued  if  Marianne  Challis  had  profited  by  her  dozen  of  years  of 
housekeeping.  But  Elizabeth  Barclay  had  been  a  treasure;  and 
treasures — that  is  to  say,  persons  who  don't  drink,  can  roast  and 
boil,  and  know  three  sorts  of  soup — make  it  quite  unnecessary  for 
any  English  mistress  to  give  any  thought  to  the  subject.  The  new 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  239 

cook,  too,  was  entrenched  in  a  strong  position.  Who  shall  say  that 
any  chance  person  who  does  not  know  how  to  pull  and  grill  now  was 
incompetent  to  pull  and  grill  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago?  Or  that  it 
is  impossible  that  she  passed  a  culinary  youth  in  contact  with 
mayonnaise  sauce,  truffles,  or  Gorgonzola  cheese,  and  yet  should  in 
that  period  have  forgotten  the  very  names  of  them?  The  problem 
Aunt  Stingy  had  to  solve  was  how  to  acquire  knowledge  without  ad- 
mitting ignorance.  And  the  attitude  she  took  up  in  the  pursuit  of 
this  object  was  that  of  a  higher  cult  graciously  stooping  to  accom- 
modate itself  to  insular  prejudice  or  mere  bucolic  barbarism.  She 
elicited  a  great  deal  of  information  by  dwelling  on  skilful  achieve- 
ments hard  to  believe  in,  but  practised  for  all  that  in  the  Augustan 
age  of  her  experience,  for  the  tables  of  an  almost  Parisian  circle  of 
connoisseurs.  There  was  danger  in  the  method,  but  her  intrepidity 
was  more  than  Murat-like.  As,  for  instance,  when,  apropos  of 
omelettes,  she  said  that  "we" — that  is,  the  cooks  attached  to  that 
circle — always  made  them  without  eggs.  On  learning  that 
omelettes  contained  nothing  but  eggs,  she  exclaimed  with  the  great- 
est presence  of  mind,  "  Oh  yes  1 — what  we  used  to  call  egg-pan- 
cakes." 

"  I'm  afraid  you'll  have  to  give  this  woman  the  sack,  Polly  Anne. 
She  can't  cook  worth  a  cent."  Thus  Mr.  Challis,  sampling  some- 
thing one  day  at  lunch,  perhaps  an  omelette  without  eggs. 

"  Oh,  do  have  a  little  patience,  Titus !  " 

"  Well — of  course  we  must  give  her  a  fair  trial.  I  didn't  mean 
immediately." 

"  Anyone  would  have  thought  you  did.  And  it  only  upsets  me, 
and  does  no  good  at  all.  Do  leave  it  alone  till  Elizabeth  Barclay 
has  shown  her  one  or  two  of  her  receipts.  She's  very  willing  to 
learn,  and  goes  to  chapel."  For  Marianne  was  disposed  to  be  lazy 
about  this  as  about  other  things,  and  was  inclined  to  temporize. 
If  Mrs.  Steptoe  could  be  educated,  why  not  retain  Mrs.  Steptoe? 
"  Even  if  you  dined  out  every  night  for  a  time — you  know  you  can; 
look  at  all  those  invitations ! — it  would  be  better  than  having  to  go 
through  it  all  again.  Oh  dear !  " 

But  Challis  was  not  anxious  either  to  dine  out  every  night,  or  to 
quarrel  over  the  dinners  at  home.  He  was  really  well  pleased  with 
himself  and  his  surroundings,  when  he  could  feel  that  he  had  passed 
a  comfortable  domestic  evening  free  from  self -questionings  and  col- 
lisions with — well ! — that  disorder  he  made  the  awkward  compound 
word  for.  But  he  never  got  off  without  scars.  When  he  thought  he 
had  succeeded,  after  a  very  well-executed  quiet  evening  with  his 
wife,  in  saying  to  himself : 


240  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Jam  me  juvaverlt 
Viros  relinquere 
Doctaeque  conjugls 
Sinu  quiescere," 

really  almost  with  earnestness ! — all  the  wind  was  taken  out  of  his 
sails  by  a  perfectly  uncalled-for  reflection  on  Marianne's  education. 
He  was  angry  after  with  himself  for  making  it.  Besides,  no  one  in 
his  senses  could  ascribe  any  abnormal  culture  to  ...  Never  you 
mind ! — what  on  earth  had  she  to  do  with  it  ? 

The  fact  is  that,  at  this  date  of  the  story,  some  two  or  three 
weeks  after  we  last  heard  his  voice  in  that  cab  that  drew  up  in 
Grosvenor  Square,  Challis  was  keeping  watch  and  ward  over  his 
love  of  his  own  home  and  the  mother  of  his  two  children.  His 
other  world — especially  the  brilliant  and  fascinating  one  that 
centred  in  the  Megatherium  Theatre  and  the  preparation  of  his  new 
play — was  both  courted  and  kept  at  bay  by  him.  He  could  make  no 
strong  stand  against  its  temptations ;  but  he  could  resent  them,  and 
did  so.  And  whenever  his  conscience — however  he  nicknamed  it — 
had  been  especially  intrusive,  he  could  always  rebuke  it  by  a  little 
more  home  life  than  usual,  by  a  more  patient  toleration  of  some 
home  discomfort.  He  did  not  see  that  the  very  fact  of  his  doing 
penance,  as  it  were,  for  his  enjoyment  of  that  outer  world  of  en- 
chantment, was  really  opening  a  postern-gate  to  admit  the  enemy 
his  culverins  were  pounding  from  the  battlements.  When  he  paid 
himself  out  for  that  delightful  supper  with  the  Megatheriums  in 
the  small  hours  of  the  morning  by  showing  forbearance  over  Mrs. 
Steptoe's  fatuous  attempts  at  cookery,  he  was  no  more  conscious 
that  he  was  really  pleading  guilty  on  the  main  issue  than  was 
Judith  Arkroyd,  when  she  declined  an  invitation  to  join  it,  con- 
scious that  she  was  only  hedging  against  her  dallyings  with  perfect 
truth  and  honour  towards  her  family  in  keeping  back  the  lengths 
she  had  gone  in  rehearsals  of  the  part  of  Aminta  Torrington.  Mrs. 
Steptoe's  greasy  cookery  and  a  dull  pompous  dinner  at  the  Duke's 
each  did  duty  as  a  salve  to  conscience  without  the  unwilling  sharers 
in  either  detecting  their  own  self-deception.  But  it  was  good  for 
Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes,  who  took  Miss  Arkroyd  in  to  the  banquet  and 
bored  her  by  his  appreciation  more  than  by  his  talk ;  which  Judith 
mimicked  extremely  well,  to  Mr.  Challis's  great  delight,  when  she 
met  him  next  day  at  the  theatre.  And  it  was  good  for  Mrs.  Steptoe, 
who  between  Challis's  penances  and  Marianne's  indisposition  for 
another  excursion  into  disengaged-cook  land,  seemed  likely  to  attain 
the  low  standard  of  excellence  we  have  mentioned  as  satisfactory  to 
the  British  housekeeper. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  241 

Marianne  gave  her  husband  no  help.  Of  course,  she  was  not 
bound  to.  We  know !  No  woman  is  under  any  legal  obligation  to 
assist  her  husband  against  himself,  if  his  affections — promised  at 
the  altar,  don't  you  see? — become  weak-kneed  and  uncertain.  He 
may  have  to  love  uphill,  but  he  must  take  his  chance  of  that.  "Still, 
she  need  not  skid  his  wheels  or  put  stones  in  his  path.  But  did 
Marianne  do  so  ? 

In  our  opinion  she  did.  Mere  words,  told  in  a  story,  go  for  little ; 
a  shade  of  accent  makes  them  much  or  nothing.  How,  we  ask  you, 
did  Bob  Challis,  Rugby-sharpened,  know  that  his  mater,  whenever 
she  made  an  allusion  to  churches  or  chapels,  was  having  a  fling  at 
his  Governor  ?  How  did  Bob  know  that  his  Governor  was  making 
no  answer  in  italics,  as  one  might  say,  when  he  turned  to  him  and 
said :  "  Got  your  new  skates,  human  schoolboy  ?  Let's  have  a  look ! 
Now,  why  is  it  no  new  strap  ever  has  a  hole  in  the  right  place  ? " 
And  made  conversation,  transparently.  Bob  did  know,  somehow; 
and  had  he  been  present  to  hear  his  mother  say  that  Mrs.  Steptoe 
went  to  Chapel,  he  would  have  quite  understood  her  inflection  of 
voice  to  convey  an  addendum,  "  which  you  don't ;  or,  at  least, 
Church,  and  you  wouldn't  say  the  responses  if  you  did." 

If  Mrs.  Challis  would  only  have  left  that  point  alone,  it  would 
have  made  a  world  of  difference  in  her  relation  with  her  husband. 
Why  would  she  not  ?  He  had  left  her  free  to  secure  salvation,  not 
only  to  her  own  children,  but  to  her  nephew  or  stepson,  whichever 
you  like  to  call  Bob.  And  he  had  made  no  conditions  except  that 
he  himself  should  be  allowed  the  luxury  of  perdition  on  his  own 
terms.  "  You  let  me  go  to  the  Devil  my  own  way,  Polly  Anne,"  he 
had  said,  "and  you  shall  have  poor  Kate's  boy,  and  tell  him  any 
gammon  you  like."  Perhaps  the  reason  why  he  said — just  now  in 
the  story — "  Docia  conjux,  indeed!  "  may  have  been  some  memory 
of  how,  when  Bob  blacked  another  boy's  eye  for  calling  the  Founder 
of  Christianity  a  Jew,  Marianne  had  defended  his  action,  and  con- 
demned the  other  boy  for  impiety  and  heathenism.  "And  you 
know  I'm  right,  Titus,"  said  the  lady  triumphantly. 

Of  course,  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  a  really  honest  fulfilment 
of  the  religious  bargain  would  have  diverted  the  current  of  events 
into  another  channel.  All  the  story  points  to  is  that  if  Challis 
could  have  reposed  on  the  bosom  of  his  "  docta  conjux  "  with  less 
fear  of  its  bristling  suddenly — like  the  image  of  the  Virgin  with 
which  the  Inquisition  convinced  the  most  sceptical — with  sug- 
gestions of  precept  or  reproof,  even  as  the  blessed  image  shot  out 
spikes,  then  there  would  have  been  one  needless  apple  of  discord  the 
less.  And  if  Marianne  had  carried  out  her  half  of  the  compact, 


242  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Titus  would  certainly  have  been  more  scrupulous  in  saying,  before 
the  boy,  things  of  a  racy  nature  on  subjects  of  reverence  in  the  eyes 
of  all  Christendom  and  many  thoughtful  persons  outside  it.  It 
wasn't  fair  to  Marianne,  who  had  no  sense  of  humour  at  all,  to 
develope  an  old  line  of  critical  analysis  of  the  Scriptures  for  the 
benefit  of  Bob;  to  consider  that  young  man,  in  fact,  as  a  Bible 
Class,  anxious  to  discover  and  record  the  first  mentions  of  all  the 
trades,  all  the  professions,  all  the  popular  complaints  delicacy  al- 
lows to  be  canvassed  in  public,  all  the  sports  and  all  the  winners, 
in  a  volume  his  mother  regarded  as  sacred.  What  did  it  matter 
how  indistinct  an  idea  she  had  of  what  she  meant  by  the  word 
sacred,  or  anything  else?  She  might  at  least  have  been  spared 
one  especial  atrocity — the  first  mention  of  pugilism.  To  do  him 
justice,  however,  Challis  was  not  himself  guilty  of  this  triumph 
of  successful  research,  which  we  need  not  record  here.  It  came 
home  from  school  with  Bob  next  Easter  holidays,  and  Bob  teemed 
and  twinkled  with  it  until  at  last  he  got  the  chance  of  delivering 
it  into  his  father's  ear  as  he  sat  astride  of  his  knee,  with  all  the 
license  of  a  boy  just  released  from  the  classics. 

"You  young  scaramouch!  Where  do  you  expect  to  go  to? 
Don't  you  go  and  tell  your  mother  that !  "  For  Challis,  in  the  pres- 
ence of  this  youth,  kept  up  a  certain  parade  of  potential  reverence, 
available  in  extreme  cases.  He  could  countenance  the  first  men- 
tion of  Cannibalism — "  The  woman  tempted  me,  and  I  did  eat." 
But  this  one  ran  near  the  confines  of  the  unpermissible — overpast 
them. 

"  ShuttJeworth  and  Graves  Minor's  going  to  tell  their  sisters. 
Because  they'll  be  in  such  an  awful  rage ! " 

"  A  very  low  motive.  Perhaps  you'll  be  good  enough  to  regulate 
your  conduct  on  better  models  than  Shuttleworth  and  Graves 
Minor." 

"  Their  father's  a  Bishop.  At  least,  Graves  Minor's  is.  He 
only  allows  him  a  shilling  a  month  pocket-money.  He's  gone  to 
his  aunts  Jane  and  Mary's  for  the  holidays  because  they're  in- 
fectious. ..." 

"  Which — the  holidays  or  the  aunts  ?  Pay  attention  to  your  an- 
tecedents, young  man ! " 

"  Neither.  They're  infectious  at  home ;  they've  got  scarlet  fever. 
He's  awfully  glad,  because  his  Aunt  Jane  lives  in  a  haunted  house, 
and  he  can  get  out  on  the  leads.  I  say,  pater!  " 

"What,  offspring?" 

"  When's  that  lady  coming  that  gave  me  my  skates  at  Christmas, 
and  the  '  Lives  of  the  Buccaneers '  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  243 

"I  don't  know.  I  can't  say.  Some  day."  Challis  has  become 
reserved  suddenly.  "  Give  me  the  little  Japanese  ash-pan,  and  find 
yourself  a  chair.  A  strong  one,  I  should  recommend."  For  Bob  is 
at  that  pleasant  growing  age  that  has  relapses  into  babyhood,  if 
not  checked  by  a  hint  now  and  then.  He  accepts  the  hint  this  time, 
but  declines  the  chair,  preferring  to  lean  over  the  back  of  his 
father's,  and  pull  his  hair. 

"  The  mater  hates  her.  I  don't."  Now,  if  this  had  been  said  im- 
mediately, it  would  have  seemed  much  slighter  conversation,  easy 
to  pass  by.  Coming  after  a  good  pause  of  hairpulling,  it  implied  a 
confidence  in  the  speaker's  mind  that  his  hearer's  had  been  dwelling, 
during  that  pause,  on  the  person  he  didn't  hate  and  his  mother  did. 

"  It's  no  concern  of  any  young  monkey's  who  his  mother  hates  or 
doesn't  hate." 

"Well! — it's  true.  And  I  say  it's  a  beastly  shame.  After  all, 
it  wasn't  her  fault  that  it  thawed." 

"You  unblushing  young  egotist!  Is  the  whole  world  to  be 
nothing  but  skates — skates — skates  ?  Whose  fault  wasn't  it  ?  Your 
mother's  ?  " 

"  No  fear !  The  mater  wanted  me  to  chuck  it  up,  and  not  skate 
at  all.  Rather !  "  This  youth's  language  depends  for  expression 
on  a  tone  of  overstrained  contempt  for  experience  outside  his  own. 
But  the  desert  of  his  egotism  has  oases.  He  reaches  one  now,  and 
says  in  quite  a  natural  voice :  "  I  say,  pap !  " 

"  Go  on,  human  creature !  " 

"  Shall  I  tell  you  what  me  and  Cat  ..." 

"What  who?"  This  is  accompanied  by  a  pantomimic  threat  of 
extermination. 

"  Well !  Cat  and  I,  then.  .  .  .  what  we  call  her,  when  we're 
alone?" 

"By  all  means.  Only  look  alive!  Because  your  father's  cigar 
is  waning,  and  copy  is  behindhand.  Go  it !  " 

"  We  call  her  Judy.     Cat  and  I  do.     Short  for  Judith." 

"  You'll  make  your  little  sister  as  bad  as  yourself,  and  she's  too 
sharp  by  half  already.  How  do  you  know  her  name's  Judith?  It 
might  be  Sarah — or  Euterpe." 

"  But  it  ain't.     It's  Judith." 

"  Ah ! — but  how  do  you  know  ?    That's  the  point." 

" Because  we  listened.     And  we  knew  the  mater  meant  her" 

Perhaps  if  Master  Bob  had  seen  his  father's  face,  it  would  have 
checked  his  outflow  of  virgin  candour.  But  he  was  behind  him, 
and  saw  nothing.  Challis  was  balancing  a  nice  question  in  his 
mind.  Ought  he  not  to  check  this  revelation?  Was  it  not  likw 


244  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

eavesdropping  to  listen  to  it  ?  He  decided  that  he  might,  as  Mari- 
anne would  surely  never  say  before  the  children  anything  she  would 
not  wish  him  to  hear.  But  he  wanted  to  know,  too.  Still,  he  was 
conscious  enough  of  his  wish  to  know,  to  find  it  necessary  to  im- 
pute his  reluctance  to  be  influenced  by  it  to  that  mental  vice  he  had 
invented  a  name  for. 

"How  did  you  know  your  mother  meant  her?  How  did  you 
know  she  didn't  mean  the  new  cook  ? " 

"No  fear!  Her  name's  Priscilla.  Besides,  the  mater  calls  her 
Steptoe.  Besides,  Aunt  Lotty  did  it,  too." 

"  Did  what  ?    What  did  Aunt  Lotty  do  ? " 

"  Called  her  Judith.    Cat  heard  her,  same  as  me." 

"  Probably  you  ought  to  say  '  same  as  I,'  young  man.  But  it 
may  be  an  open  question."  Challis  paused,  half -minded  to  request 
his  promising  son  and  heir  to  keep  his  confidences  in  reserve.  But 
the  evil  genius  of  himself  or  Marianne  stepped  in,  and  caused 
Catharine,  the  little  girl,  who  was  still  under  seven,  to  sing  with 
her  mouth  shut  as  she  hung  over  the  bannisters  in  the  passage  out- 
side. Master  Bob  immediately  left  off  pulling  his  father's  hair  and 
rushed  to  the  door,  shouting  loud  enough  for  the  Universe  to  hear, 
"  Didn't  she,  Cat  ? "  and  ended  a  perfectly  orthodox  interview  for 
the  collection  of  evidence  by  lugging  the  witness  in,  nearly  upside 
down,  to  testify. 

"  Put  your  sister  down,  you  young  ruffian — do  you  hear  ?  "  And 
Challis  adds  under  his  breath :  "  Much  good  your  school's  doing 
you !  "  But  the  young  persons  explain  simultaneously,  "  That's 
how  we  do,"  not  without  pride  in  an  ancient  usage. 

Now,  this  little  provincialism,  or  scrap  of  folklore,  had  its  share 
in  moulding  events.  For  consider! — if  a  Sabine  woman,  after 
Rubens,  had  been  put  down  right-end-up,  anxious  to  make  a  state- 
ment, who  could  have  refused  to  listen  to  her  ?  Challis,  who  would 
not  have  objected  to  hearing  no  more  of  what  Aunt  Lotty  said,  felt 
bound  to  take  the  readjusted  maiden  on  his  knee — she  wasn't 
Sabine,  and  he  could — and  get  at  the  upshot  of  her  disjointed  testi- 
mony. Master  Bob,  following  ascertained  usage,  dictated  or  sug- 
gested her  evidence;  and  nipped  anticipated  statement  in  the  bud, 
at  his  convenience.  Between  the  two  of  them,  however,  it  was  clear- 
enough  what  sort  of  talk  had  gone  on  between  their  mother  and 
Aunt  Lotty. 

"  After  all,"  said  the  vexed  man  to  himself,  after  packing  off  his 
young  informants  to  presumable  mischief  elsewhere — "after  all, 
what  can  it  matter  if  Marianne  did  say  in  a  moment  of  irritation 
that  I  might  go  away  to  .  .  ."he  paused  on  the  next  two  words, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  245 

and  finished  without  them  abruptly  "...  altogether  if  I  liked?'* 
Then  he  tormented  himself  a  little  about  his  own  shrinking  from 
uttering  the  words  "  my  Judith,"  and  ended  by  saying  them  in  a 
cowardly  way,  under  his  breath,  to  show  his  independence. 

He  was  sitting  in  his  library  at  the  time,  opposite  to  a  half- 
written  sheet  of  foolscap.  It  was  copy,  waiting  for  more  copy, 
which  came  not.  Challis  denied  his  self-accusation  that  this  was 
owing  to  the  way  that  fool  of  a  woman's  words  had  upset  him — 
meaning  Charlotte  Eldridge;  he  absolved  his  wife.  Had  he  not 
often  to  wait  for  an  idea,  to  get  a  start  with  ?  Let  him  see,  where 
was  he?  Oh  yes! — where  Estrild  tears  off  her  jewels  and  flings 
them  at  the  Ostrogoths.  Judith  Arkroyd  would  be  simply  mag- 
nificent there!  For  this  was  the  great  tragedy  he  had  promised 
Judith  he  would  try  his  hand  on  expressly  for  her.  How  that  in- 
comparable arm  and  hand  would  tell,  with  Estrild's  blood  visible  on. 
it,  torn  by  the  bracelet  her  vehemence  had  plucked  off !  .  .  . 

Very  likely  it  was  all  a  blunder  of  the  kid's,  and  Charlotte 
Eldridge  had  never  said  any  such  thing.  Was  it  likely  she  would 
say,  "  Of  course,  Titus  calls  her  Judith,  when  they^re  alone "  ? 
Still,  the  deposition  did  sound  like  that,  and  that  was  a  damnable 
mischief -making  woman,  mind  you!  Challis  was  conscious,  as  he 
said  this  to  himself,  of  an  image  of  Charlotte  Eldridge,  rather  a 
graceful  one,  turning  an  impish  glance  over  her  shoulder  to  see  the 
effect  of  some  apple  of  discord,  just  thrown.  There  was  a  skittish- 
ness  about  this  image,  a  skirt-sweep,  that  was  true  to  life.  So  was 
the  becoming  hat  the  odious  woman  always  wore  indoors  whenever 
she  could,  with  that  meaning  feather  in  it.  How  Challis  hated  her 
as  he  thought  to  himself  that  they  all  meant,  somehow,  her  student- 
ship in  the  University  in  which  that  dowdy  Eros,  whom  we  men- 
tioned before,  was  Dean  of  the  Faculty  of  Discord-breeding  between 
a  lady  and  gentleman,  about  a  gentleman  or  lady.  But  they  were 
the  constituents  of  a  Stylish  Female,  according  to  John  Eldridge, 
her  husband,  the  victim  of  peritonitis. 

"  Come  in!  "  No  wonder  Mr.  Challis  said  it  a  little  impatiently, 
when  a  knock  came  at  his  study-door,  because  he  had  just  got  his 
idea,  and  was  at  last  effectively  at  work  again  upon  the  Ostrogoths. 
The  impatience  caused  Marianne,  who  had  knocked,  to  say  that 
another  time  would  do  as  well.  But  to  her  husband's  sensitive 
hearing  the  tone,  distant  and  severe,  in  which  she  said  it  spoke  vol- 
umes. And  the  Tables  of  Contents  of  those  volumes  related  to 
gulfs  placed  between  married  couples  resident  in  Wimbledon  by 
fashionable  beauties  with  a  turn  for  the  stage.  It  was  a  large 
order  for  a  mere  tone  of  voice,  but  it  was  quite  filled  out,  as  the 


246  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

commercial  phrase  it.  Challis  could  not  possibly  allow  Marianne 
to  depart,  closing  the  door  with  aggressive  gentleness.  It  would 
have  been  checking  the  items  of  the  large  order.  "  Come  back !  "  he 
shouted.  "What  is  it?  How  can  you  be  absurd,  Polly  Anne? 
Come  in !  " 

Polly  Anne  came  in,  but  every  step  of  her  entry  was  fraught 
with  instant  withdrawal.  "  I  won't  keep  you  a  minute,  because  of 
Steptoe  and  the  dinner,"  she  said,  jumbling  her  context  horribly. 
"  Only  I  must  know  if  you're  going  out  or  not." 

Challis  really  tried  to  be  jolly  and  good-natured  over  it.  "  Oh 
no !  it's  all  right,"  said  he.  "  I'm  at  home  to-night." 

"  You  had  better  make  sure."  She  spoke  rather  like  an  iceberg 
— a  forbearing  one,  but  still  an  iceberg.  "  Look  at  your  cards  on 
the  chimney-piece." 

Now,  the  fact  was  that  the  lady  knew  the  position,  having  gone 
over  the  ground  the  evening  before  in  her  husband's  absence.  "  The 
pink  card !  "  said  she.  And  thus  guided,  Challis  found  himself 
brought  to  book — convicted  of  inconsiderate  forgetfulness  alike  of 
his  friend  and  his  household.  "  I  wish  you  would  be  more  careful," 
said  the  iceberg. 

"  But  I  really  did  think  the  Acropolis  was  to-morrow,  the  twenty- 
third." 

"  To-day  is  the  twenty-third."  One  more  degree  of  frost  on  the 
iceberg. 

"I  thought  to-day  was  Wednesday."  A  feeble  effort  to  ex- 
tenuate. 

"  To-day  is  Thursday.  You  see  on  the  card.  It  doesn't  matter. 
I  can  easily  arrange  with  Steptoe.  ...  Oh  no ! — you  can't  throw 
them  over  at  the  last  moment.  Quite  absurd !  " 

"Well!— I'm  awfully  sorry." 

"It  makes  no  difference  at  all.  Now,  I  won't  disturb  you  any 
more."  And  the  iceberg  retired. 

But  if  Challis  had  given  way  to  his  first  impulse,  had  run  after 
his  wife,  kissed  her,  said  good-humouredly,  "  Don't  be  miffy,  Polly 
Anne ! — I  shall  be  at  home  to-morrow.  And  you  know  the  Acropol- 
ites  did  ask  you  too  " — had  he  done  this,  all  might  have  gone  bet- 
ter. But  his  impulse  was  weakened  by  the  thought — or  the 
knowledge — that  his  wife  knew  perfectly  well  when  she  entered  the 
room  that  he  had  this  engagement,  and  must  already  have  made 
all  her  household  arrangements  with  reference  to  it.  He  resented 
her  insincerity,  and  though  he  rose  from  his  chair  and  went  towards 
the  door,  his  resentment  had  the  best  of  it  half-way,  and  he  bit  his 
lip  and  returned,  looking  vexed.  Now,  why  couldn't  she  have  said 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  24T 

honestly  to  him  at  breakfast,  "Recollect,  to-night's  the  Acropolis 
dinner  "  ?  He  was  in  such  a  state  of  sensitive  irritation  that,  just 
as  he  was  getting  into  stroke  again,  he  had  a  new  upset — caught 
a  crab,  as  it  were — because  Estrild  reminded  him  of  Eldridge,  and 
brought  the  whole  vexation  back  in  full  force  I 


CHAPTER  XX 

MRS.  ELDRIDGE  IN  FULL  BLOW.  THE  IMPROPER  STUDY  OF  MANKIND. 
NOTHING  REALLY  WRONG !  AN  IDENTIFICATION  WITH  A  VENGEANCE. 
HOW  CHALLIS  CAME  HOME  LATE 

BE  good  enough  to  note  that  none  of  the  characters  in  this  story 
are  picturesque  or  heroic — only  chance  samples  of  folk  such  as  you 
may  see  pass  your  window  now,  this  moment,  if  you  will  only  lay 
your  book  down  and  look  out.  They  are  passing — passing  all  day 
long — each  with  a  story.  And  some  little  thing  you  see,  a  meeting, 
a  parting,  a  quickened  step,  a  hesitation  and  return,  may  make  the 
next  hour  the  turning-point  of  an  existence.  For  it  is  of  such  lit- 
tle things  the  great  ones  are  made;  and  this  is  a  tale  made  up  of 
trifles — trifles  touching  human  souls  that,  for  aught  we  know  to 
the  contrary,  may  last  for  ever. 

It  is  the  share  Marianne  had  in  a  thousand  little  things  like  the 
triviality  with  which  our  last  chapter  ended  that  makes  us  say  that 
she  gave  her  husband  no  help  against  himself.  Many  a  time  a 
word  of  concession  from  her,  in  answer  to  any  of  his  unspoken 
appeals  for  help — for  the  plain  truth  is,  he  made  many  such  appeals 
— might  have  led  to  a  rushed  embrace  of  reconciliation,  and  a 
flood  of  not  "altogether  uncontrite  tears  from  her,  and  even  some 
fropi  him;  for  though  one  may  pity  him,  he  cannot  be  held  ab- 
solutely blameless.  The  fact  is,  Alfred  Challis  had  loved  this  Mari- 
anne even  better  than  ever  he  did  her  sister,  Bob's  mother — loved 
her,  that  is,  as  men  love  what  is  called  Ijeaute  de  didble,  and  a  kind 
of  rough,  good-natured  manner.  Besides,  see  how  good  she  was 
with  the  boy ! 

If  there  had  been  no  core  of  jealous  reserve  born  of  overstrained 
self-respect  inside  this  rosy-seeming  apple — if  the  girl  would  have 
obligingly  matured  without  change — she  would  always  have  re- 
mained Polly  Anne,  as  of  old.  But  the  core  was  there,  and  there 
Challis  was  to  find  it,  after  a  pleasant  year  or  so  of  experience  of 
the  outside  of  the  fruit — the  best  part.  Hence  she  came  to  be 
Marianne  rather  than  Polly  Anne  to  him,  of tener  and  of tener ;  Mrs. 

248 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  249 

Challis  rather  than  Marianne  to  friends ;  and  "  your  mother " 
rather  than  "  mamma  "  to  the  children. 

She  was  not  the  woman  for  the  position  in  which  she  found  her- 
self. There  was  really  only  one  chance  of  steady  sailing  for  the 
domestic  ship,  and  that  was  that  she  should  go  everywhere  with 
her  husband,  brave  the  snubs  of  the  scornful  toff,  laugh  at  her  own 
inferiorities,  and,  above  all,  rejoice  publicly  at  every  new  success 
of  her  husband.  Inwardly  she  may  have  done  the  last ;  all  the  other 
conditions  she  failed  in.  The  one  chance  was  not  caught  at,  and 
this  man  found  himself  alternately  in  the  brilliant  world  of  Im- 
perial London,  made  much  of,  looked  up  to  as  an  authority  and 
quoted,  refusing  from  sheer  plenitude  welcomes  to  one  rich  house 
after  another — all  these  on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other — suppose 
we  put  it  briefly — Mrs.  Steptoe. 

If  Marianne  had  only  had  a  friend  who  would  have  pointed  out 
the  exaggerated  nature  of  her  impressions  about  the  motley  crew  we 
owe  so  much  to  Sir  Bernard  Burke  for  telling  the  likes  of  us  about ! 
A  friend,  even,  who  would  have  said  to  her,  "  Don't  give  way  to 
jealous  pride,  stupid;  but  go  and  observe  the* ways  of  the  human 
toff,  and  come  home  and  tell  me,  id  has.  I'll  do  your  hair  for  you." 
But  there  was  none  such ! — only  Charlotte  Eldridge ! 

Mrs.  Eldridge  certainly  got  some  satisfaction  out  of  the  concern ; 
it  would  have  been  a  sad  pity  if  no  one  had  got  any.  It  was  all  in 
the  way  of  her  own  specialty,  the  proper — or  improper — study  of 
her  kind.  It  may  as  well  be  admitted  that  the  conversation  the 
children  overheard  part  of  had  run  thus : 

"  I  don't  think,  dear,  that  my  feeling  uneasy  whenever  John  is 
out  of  my  sight  ought  to  count  John  is  a  fool.  Besides,  girls 
that  apply  for  situations  are  very  mixed,  whether  telegraph  or 
sorters.  The  most  dangerous  class  of  girl  may  apply.  The  safe- 
guard in  his  case  is  that  there  is  so  little  reserve  in  his  nature. 
When  his  admiration  is  excited  he  always  makes  grimaces  about 
them,  and  then  I  know  who,  at  once.  If  taxed  with  them  he  al- 
ways whistles  popular  airs  and  shuts  one  eye.  'Pop  goes  the 
Weasel '  or  '  Tarara-boomdeay.'  But  I  try  to  believe  he  knows 
where  to  draw  the  line.  This  case  is  different." 

"  I  don't  see  the  difference." 

"The  girls  are  different.  This  Miss  Sibyl  What's-her- 
name  ..." 

"The  one  Titus  admires  so  much  is  Judith.  Sibyl's  the  Art 
Coiffeur  one,  that  wanted  to  do  my  hair  like  a  picture  of 
Titian's.  ..." 

"  Titian's  mistress,  I  suppose.    They  did,  then.    Well ! — I  meant 


250  IT  NEVEB  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Judith.  Don't  you  see  how  entirely  different  the  cases  are? 
Judith's  position! — the  publicity,  dear! — the  whole  thing!  ..." 

"  No ! — I  see  no  difference." 

"My  dear! — what  nonsense!  Do  you  mean  to  say  .  .  .  why, 
only  look  how  he  '  Miss  Arkroyds '  and  *  Miss  Sibyls '  them !  One 
judges  from  little  things." 

"  When  we're  here,  Titus  does.    But  when  they're  alone  .    .    .  ? " 

"  Well,  of  course !  When  they're  alone,  Mr.  Challis  may  call 
her  Judith.  I  don't  say  he  does,  but  suppose  he  does,  what  does  it 
all  amount  to?  ...  Now  don't  be  unreasonable,  Marianne 
dear!" 

"I  am  not  unreasonable,  Charlotte.  .  .  .  Nonsense!  I'm  not 
crying  about  it.  I  wouldn't  be  such  a  fool.  But  all  I  can  say  is, 
if  Titus  wants  to  go  away  to  his  Judith,  let  him  go  ?  I  don't  want 
to  keep  him,  against  his  will.  .  .  .  What  are  those  children  at,  in 
there  ?  "  At  which  point  the  conversation  may  stop. 

Incidentally,  it  helps  us  to  see  that  Sibyl  had  lent  herself  to  an 
effort,  which  seemed  to  her — as  to  us — a  politic  one,  to  induce  Mrs. 
Alfred  Challis  to  be  a  little  more  coming  and  tractable.  She  quite 
appreciated  that  friendship  between  her  sister  and  Challis,  if  Mari- 
anne was  included  in  it,  would  be  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
same  thing,  conditioned  otherwise.  And  when  she  called  at  the 
Hermitage  with  her  sister,  she  was  strongly  impressed  that  scandal, 
if  any  arose,  would  be  the  more  dangerous  unless  Marianne  could 
be  induced  to  change  her  attitude,  which  suggested  that  of  a  civil 
tigress,  with  a  grievance  against  the  jungle. 

"  You  needn't  make  a  fuss  about  me,"  said  Mrs.  Challis  to  her 
husband,  just  departing  for  the  Acropolis  Club.  He  always  went 
through  an  apologetic  phase,  partly  real,  every  time  he  deserted  the 
domestic  hearth.  This  time  his  remorse  was  superficial ;  for  surely 
Marianne  might  just  as  well  have  accompanied  him  to  this  enter- 
tainment. You  know  the  Acropolis  Club,  no  doubt? — a  cock-and- 
hen  club  of  the  purest  water,  with  about  the  proportion  of  hens  one 
sees  in  farmyards.  He  would  have  preferred  her  coming.  How- 
ever, he  wasn't  to  make  a  fuss  about  her ;  that  was  settled.  It  was 
fine,  she  said;  and  Charlotte  had  said  she  would  come  in  if  it  was 
fine.  Challis  became  aware  that  Charlotte  must  have  said  she 
would  come  in,  sometime  before  he  himself  had  been  reminded  of 
his  engagement  to  go  out.  His  remorse  vanished  all  the  quicker, 
and  he  was  beginning  to  enjoy  his  clean  shirt-front — a  phrase  his 
mind  put  by  for  his  next  story  on  any  light  social  subject — before 
his  hansom  landed  him  at  Wimbledon  Station.  The  Acropolis,  you 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  251 

remember,  is  barely  ten  minutes  cab  from  Waterloo,  so  this  way 
did  perfectly. 

"John  finds  it  do  better,"  said  Mrs,  Eldridge,  arriving  in  due 
course.  "  Only  when  he  wants  a  walk  he  goes  by  East  Putney, 
because  the  District  saves  him  at  the  other  end.  Eight  o'clock  din- 
ner, I  suppose.  Besides,  they  won't  be  punctual.  They  never  are, 
nowadays."  This  was  said  to  show  how  thoroughly  au  fait  the 
speaker  was  of  the  ways  of  fashionable  life.  It  was  mere  talk  by 
the  way,  unspiced  by  direct  reference  to  any  Eros,  respectable  or 
otherwise. 

"  I  know  nothing  about  them,"  said  Marianne  damningly — that 
is,  so  far  as  a  suggestion  that  she  was  none  the  worse  thereby  could 
condemn.  Another,  that  it  was  best  to  know  little  of  the  class  re- 
ferred to,  was  latent.  It  rankled  though,  all  the  more  that  Mrs. 
Eldridge's  expressive  silence  recognized  its  existence  better  than 
words.  A  garrulous  person's  silence  may  have  all  the  force  of  a 
pause  in  a  symphony.  When  the  baton  of  Mrs.  Eldridge's  con- 
ductor, Mischief,  allowed  the  music  to  steal  gently  in  again,  it 
came  on  tiptoe,  with  subtle  finished  skill ;  a  pianissimo  flute-phrase 
in  the  stillness,  harbinger  perhaps  of  a  volume  of  sound. 

"  Couldn't  you — Marianne  dear — couldn't  you  .    .    .  ? " 

"  Couldn't  I  what  ? "  It  may  be  unfair  to  use  the  adjective 
grumpy  to  describe  this  question.  When  a  lady  beds  her  chin  in 
both  hands,  with  her  elbows  on  her  knees,  and  gazes  at  a  slow- 
combustion  stove  doing  its  best,  while  she  speaks,  her  words  may 
have  an  altogether  false  effect. 

"  Ah — well !  Perhaps  I  oughtn't  to  say.  .  .  .  Never  mind, 
dear !  Let's  talk  of  something  else.  How's  Mrs.  Steptoe  getting  on 
with  her  soups?"  A  brisk  rally  of  the  orchestra — a  rousing  thrill 
on  the  drum.  But  too  artificial ! 

"Elizabeth  Barclay's  been  here  to-day,  to  show  her  about  blot- 
ting-paper. Greasy,  and  then  Titus  grumbles.  But  what  did  you 
mean  to  say  ? " 

The  conductor  hushes  the  orchestra — gives  gentle  permission 
again  to  the  flute.  "  No,  dear,  I  oughtn't  to  say.  Because  I  know 
how  you  feel  about  it,  exactly.  But  what  I  thought  of  saying 
•was  ..." 

"  Yes.    Do  go  on,  Charlotte ! " 

"  Couldn't  you  have  made  up  your  mind  to  go— just  this  once  \ 
Because  you  were  asked,  this  time." 

"I  shouldn't  have  enjoyed  myself." 

"  Of  course  not,  dear!    Neither  should  I.     But  you  know  what  I 


252     f  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

think.  It  all  turns  on  a  question  of  prudence.  Anything  is  better 
than  an  esclandre."  The  other  instruments  come  in  again,  and  the 
conductor  is  warming  to  his  work. 

"I  don't  see  why  we  want  anything  French  in  it.  There's 
nothing  of  that  sort,  so  far  as  I  know." 

"  Of  coiirse  not,  with  the  people ! "  Given,  that  is,  this  char- 
acter cast,  Parisian  laxities  have  no  chance.  But  distinctions  must 
be  made.  "  Nobody's  the  least  likely  to  do,  but  people  will  say, 
exactly  the  same  as  if  they  did  do."  Better  expressed  by  Hamlet, 
in  the  plague  he  offered  poor  Ophelia  as  a  dowry!  Who  shall 
escape  calumny  ? 

Marianne  mutters  something  her  friend  takes  to  be,  "I  don't 
care  what  people  say."  The  orchestra — pursuing  our  strained  mu- 
sical metaphor — sees  a  crescendo  phrase  ahead,  and  the  conductor 
interprets  it  as  accelerando. 

"  That's  where  you're  so  wrong,  dear — do  forgive  me  for  saying 
it!  But  you  are  wrong.  Pure  and  honest  natures  like  yours  al- 
ways make  that  mistake.  Of  course  you  know,  and  I  know — we 
all  know — that  to  speak  of  anything  really  wrong  in  the  same 
breath  with  your  husband  would  be  absurd,  and  even  this  fash- 
ionable girl  for  that  matter.  I  mean,  you  know,  really  wrong." 
A  nod-supported  whisper — the  music  goes  to  pianissimo  quite  sud- 
denly; consider  the  sharp  ears  of  Mrs.  Steptoe,  and  Harmood,  in 
the  kitchen !  But  enough  of  that.  Our  text  calls  for  no  secrecies ; 
brush  them  aside,  and  resume  without  pedals,  but  con  espressione. 
"  But  everyone  is  not  like  you,  dear !  So  many  people  take  pleas- 
ure in  putting — well!  the  most  horrid  constructions  on  the  most 
innocent.  .  .  .  What?"  For  Mrs.  Charlotte  had  stopped  to 
gloat  so  long  over  the  first  syllable  of  innocent — she  did  not  enjoy 
the  "  horrid  constructions  "  half  so  much — that  she  had  not  heard 
what  Marianne  said.  Who,  on  request,  repeated  it: 

"I  didn't  say  I  didn't  care  what  people  said  ...  oh  well! — 
I've  forgotten  what  I  did  say  now,  and  it  doesn't  matter.  Any- 
how, I  consider  I've  done  my  duty,  and  now  I  simply  won't  go  to 
any  of  their  dinners,  come  what  may,  Acropolis  Club  or  no! 
So  there ! "  This  is  a  stronger  ground  than  a  plea  of  simple  non- 
enjoyment  as  a  cause  of  abstention,  and  Charlotte  makes  no  pro- 
test. Her  mind,  too,  is  attracted  by  another  point.  She  speaka 
dreamily  to  express  that  it  is  feeling  its  way,  as  through  a  mist,  to 
illumination. 

"What  was  it  ...  oh,  don't  you  know?  Lewis  Smithson 
heard  it  ...  oh  dear! — what  was  the  name  of  the  club  now? 
One  of  these  mixed  clubs  ...  oh  no! — of  course,  I  know  what 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  253 

the  story  itself  was — you  needn't  tell  me  that!  ...  I  mean  what 
was  the  name  of  the  club  ? "  But  Marianne  cannot  help,  and  con- 
versation can't  stop  for  it.  At  any  rate,  it  wasn't  the  Acropolis. 
Which  Mrs.  Eldridge  repeats  more  than  once  confirmatorily,  to 
make  the  Acropolis  safe  before  resuming  the  general  question.  She 
dismisses  the  legend  itself — what  it  was  does  not  matter  here — as 
quite  unworthy  of  credence.  "I  believe  Lewis  Smithson  made  it 
himself,"  she  says.  "  Anyhow,  it's  nonsense.  For  my  part,  I 
should  say  they  were  much  more  likely  to  be  stiff  and  straight  up, 
for  fear  of  its  getting  about.  Besides,  who  was  it  you  said  was 
coming  to  this  party  ?  Lord  and  Lady  Who  ? " 

"  Some  name  like  Albatross." 

"  Ross  Tarbet.  Why,  my  dear,  they're  the  pink!  Corstrechan 
Castle  in  Banffshire.  Oh  no ! — it's  all  right  enough  as  far  as  that 
goes.  But  still  I  do  think,  if  you  ask  me,  it  would  have  been  just 
as  well  if  you  hadn't  refused." 

"  Why  ?  I  do  wish  you  would  speak  plainly,  Charlotte,  and  not 
go  round  and  round." 

Mrs.  Eldridge  won't  commit  herself  to  a  statement  without  pass- 
ing through  a  period  of  reflection.  It  is  consistent  with  the  con- 
templation of  the  shadow  of  her  free  hand,  held  beyond  it,  on  the 
screen  she  is  interposing  between  her  face  and  the  fire.  Its 
silhouette  of  outspread  fingers  seems  to  satisfy  her,  and  not  to  in- 
terfere with  the  thoughts  that  her  drooped  eyelids  and  fixed  look  are 
grave  about.  After  quite  enough  cogitation,  she  says  abruptly: 
"  I  wasn't  thinking  of  at  the  dinner.  Nor  the  rest  of  the  evening. 
But  seeing  home  comes  in.  However,  if  you  think  of  it,  she 
would  be  with  the  Ross  Tarbets,  and  they  would  drive  her  home. 
Let's  see !  The  club's  in  Jermyn  Street.  Her  family  are  in  Gros- 
venor  Square.  I  fancy  the  Ross  Tarbets  are  in  Park  Lane.  It's 
all  in  the  way." 

Such  talk  ought  to  have  had  a  soothing,  reassuring  influence. 
Miss  Arkroyd  under  the  wing  of  a  live  Countess,  safe  of  an  escort 
to  the  paternal  mansion,  what  more  could  be  asked?  Never- 
theless, there  is  an  hysterical  sound — to  Mrs.  Eldridge's  experienced 
ear — in  the  laugh  with  which  Marianne  says:  "What  silly  non- 
sense! As  if  it  made  any  difference  to  me  if  Titus  saw  the  girl 
home  in  twenty  cabs !  " 

"Because  you  have  such  confidence  in  Titus,  my  dear.  And 
that  is  right !  I  wouldn't  trust  John  myself.  But  he's  different." 

If  Marianne  had  been  in  the  least  a  humorist,  the  image  of  Mr. 
Eldridge,  in  danger  from  an  aristocratic  enchantress,  seeking  to 
unsettle  his  devotion  to  the  stylish  female  he  could  now  call  his 


254  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

own,  would  have  drawn  from  her  a  more  genuine  laugh  than  her 
last.  But  she  was  in  no  mood  for  laughing,  and  the  greatest  booby 
in  Christendom  might  have  passed  muster  with  her  as  a  parallel  to 
her  husband.  We  are  not  prepared  to  say  he  had  not  done  so  in  the 
present  case. 

Marianne  got  up  uneasily  from  the  low  chair  she  sat  on  before 
the  fire;  took  another,  but  did  not  keep  it  long;  rose  again,  and 
walked  restlessly  about  the  room.  Unlike  her! — so  thought  her 
companion,  glancing  up  at  her  keenly,  but  furtively.  Mrs. 
Eldridge  had  no  definite  plan  of  mischief ;  she  only  wanted  the  lux- 
ury of  caressing  her  favourite  subject.  She  felt  a  little  alarmed, 
and  rather  wished  the  disquieted  one  would  sit  down  again.  But 
Marianne  showed  no  tendency  to  do  so.  On  the  contrary,  she  said 
suddenly :  "  I  forgot  to  tell  Martha  those  underthings  must  not 
go  to  the  wash.  That  woman  always  shrinks  them,"  and  left  the 
room.  Mrs.  Eldridge  heard  her  bedroom  door  close  above,  but  no 
sound  of  colloquy  with  Martha.  Then  her  attention  was  taken  off 
by  a  tap  at  the  door,  whose  executant  she  gave  leave  to  come  in. 

It  was  Mrs.  Steptoe,  meek  and  creditable  as  an  evening-cook;  to 
wit,  one  that  has  done  her  washing-up.  A  sense  of  chapel  hangs 
upon  her,  and  the  cough  she  gives  as  preface  to  speech  seems  con- 
scious of  its  indebtedness  to  a  pause  in  some  sort  of  devotional 
service  undefined.  Her  widowhood  and  the  distinction  of  her  sud- 
den loss  have  given  Aunt  Stingy  a  chastened  identity.  But 
though  in  the  ascendant,  she  will  not  obtrude  herself.  Mrs.  Challis 
— servants  seem  lately  to  have  left  off  saying  missis  and  master — 
not  being  to  the  fore,  she  will  retire  and  remain  in  abeyance,  ex- 
ceptin'  rang  for.  It  was  only  to  remind  about  ordering  Huntley 
and  Palmer,  Mr.  Challis  being  that  particular.  But  Mrs.  Challis 
would  be  back  directly,  said  Mrs.  Eldridge.  Aunt  Stingy,  nothing 
loth,  would  remain  to  chat. 

Interrogated,  Lizarann's  aunt  is  finding  the  place  comfortable. 
The  ketching  chemley  draws  a  little  imperfect,  certainly;  but  the 
boiler  full  up,  if  hot  over-night,  lastis  on  the  next  day,  and  any 
quantity.  A  great  convenience !  It  is  noticeable  about  Mrs.  Step- 
toe's  speech  that  it  does  not  improve  when  she  tries  to  talk  up 
to  her  company.  When  she  spoke  to  her  equals  in  Tallack  Street, 
without  desire  to  impress,  she  was  provincial  and  unpolished,  but 
seldom  Cockney.  Now,  her  attempts  to  be  classical  and  win  re- 
spect from  Mrs.  Eldridge  are  failures. 

"  What  sort  of  a  place  was  Mrs.  Fossett's ! " 

"  Miss! — excusin'  my  makin'  bold  to  correct*  But  not  in  a  place 
there.  Only  as  a  reference." 


255 

"  Where  was  your  last  place,  then  ? "  But  Mrs.  Steptoe  ex- 
plained, with  many  reserves  and  sidelights,  that  she  had  never 
been  truly  in  service;  having  led,  broadly  speaking,  a  regal  life, 
until  she  married  beneath  her,  but,  nevertheless,  into  a  respectable 
trade  connection.  The  suggestion  that  her  husband's  brain  had 
been  affected  rounded  off  a  tale  that  hinted  at  ancestry  and  a  pur- 
suing evil  destiny — the  race  of  Laius !  "  But  you  used  to  cook, 
wherever  you  were,  once,"  said  Mrs.  Eldridge,  wedded  to  practical 
issues. 

"Oh,  there,  now! — cook,  indeed!  Why,  I  was  sayin',  only  to- 
day, to  Miss  Harmood,  *  If  you  could  have  seen  the  table  they  kep' 
at  Sea  View,  soups  and  jellies  and  made-up  dishes  and  the  whole 
attention  left  to  me,  in  the  manner  of  speak  in'.'  Owing,  ma'am, 
you  see,  to  uncertain  health,  my  aunt's  sister — in  charge  of  the 
establishment — suffering  with  a  complication,  and  terminated 
fatally  eleven  years  this  Easter  Day.  Coming  back  to  me,  natu- 
rally, with  the  season."  A  retrospective  sigh,  over  life's  changes, 
came  well  in  here, 

"  Was  it  a  sort  of  private  hotel,  or  boarding-house  ? "  Mrs. 
Eldridge  thought  she  saw  light. 

Mrs.  Steptoe  conveyed  general  assent,  without  close  definition. 
"  But  very  select ! "  she  added.  And  Mrs.  Eldridge  said,  "  Of 
course,"  entirely  without  reason. 

Aunt  Stingy  felt  encouraged,  and  made  up  her  mind  to  resume  in 
full  all  particulars  of  the  banquet  we  have  heard  about.  After  all, 
she  is  not  the  only  person  that  ever  dwelt  overmuch  on  scanty  in- 
cidents of  slight  importance  in  themselves;  but  oases,  for  all  that, 
in  the  arid  stretches  of  an  eventless  life.  Besides — as  her  tale 
showed  after  Mrs.  Eldridge  had  heard  all  about  the  splendid  cook- 
ing accommodation  of  this  establishment  at  Ramsgate,  and  full 
particulars  almost  of  every  dish  on  the  table — there  was  revealed  a 
curious  sequel  to  this  seaside  dissipation,  which  no  doubt  would 
have  been  communicated  to  Mrs.  Challis,  if  that  lady  had  been  as 
inquisitive  as  her  friend.  For  Mrs.  Charlotte  hearing  of  an  occa- 
sion— fifteen  years  ago! — when  six  or  eight  persons  of  either  sex 
had  dined  together,  forthwith  smelt  rats,  and  made  for  their 
places  of  concealment  with  the  alacrity  of  a  Dandie  Dinmont. 

"  You  seem  to  remember  them  all  very  well,  Mrs.  Steptoe." 

"Along  of  what  followed,  no  doubt,  ma'am."  The  speaker  ap- 
peared to  become  suddenly  reserved,  but  awaiting  catechism  for  all 
that. 

Mrs.  Eldridge's  shrewd  intelligence  reached  the  issue  promptly. 
"  Perhaps  you  promised  not  to  tell  it.  Don't  tell  me ! "  This  would 


256  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

have  disappointed  Aunt  Stingy,  if  she  had  believed  it  genuine. 
But  she  didn't,  and  confirmation  of  her  disbelief  came.  "  Only 
really,  it's  so  long  ago!  It's  almost  ridiculous."  The  catechumen 
still  awaited  pressure.  "  But  do  just  as  you  feel,  Mrs.  Steptoe. 
Of  course,  it's  no  affair  of  mine." 

Aunt  Stingy  laughed  slightingly,  to  remove  the  matter  from 
among  grave  responsibilities.  "  Ho,  as  for  that,"  she  said,  "  I  was 
never  under  any  promise — only  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallock  wished  no 
reference  made.  Only,  as  you  was  sayin',  such  a  many  years 
after  ...  Is  that  Mrs.  Challis  coming  ? "  But  it  wasn't. 

"  She's  speaking  to  Martha  upstairs.  She  won't  come  yet." 
Mrs.  Eldridge  betrays  her  curiosity — is  very  transparent.  So 
urged,  Aunt  Stingy  gives,  not  at  all  obscurely,  a  narrative  some 
ten  minutes  long,  which,  for  all  purposes  of  this  story,  may  be 
condensed  as  follows: — 

The  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallock  who  figure  in  it  had,  for  some  not 
very  evident  reasons,  felt  justified  in  abetting  the  marriage  of 
their  nursery-governess  with  a  man  supposed  to  be  of  good  means 
and  antecedents,  with  the  full  knowledge  that  this  marriage  was 
concealed  from  her  family,  and  was  to  remain  so  for  a  term.  The 
dinner  that  was  Aunt  Stingy's  culinary  triumph  was  a  festivity  to 
welcome  this  happy  couple  on  their  return  from  a  short  honeymoon. 
The  young  gentleman  named  as  Harris  among  the  guests  was  a 
friend  of  the  bridegroom.  So  far,  nothing  very  criminal.  But 
there  was  a  sequel.  The  Hallocks,  returning  next  season  to  the 
same  apartments,  where  it  seemed  they  spent  every  summer,  fre- 
quently referred  to  the  affair,  but  always  with  surprise  that  no 
news  had  reached  them  of  the  wedded  couple,  and  this  in  spite  of 
inquiries  by  letter.  "  Ungrateful  girl ! "  was  their  verdict.  One 
morning  towards  the  end  of  their  stay  they  were  dumbfounded  by 
an  advertisement  of  a  wedding,  in  the  Telegraph.  The  bride  actu- 
ally bore  the  name  of  their  ex-governess — her  maiden  name,  that 
is — while  the  bridegroom's  was,  to  their  nearest  recollection, 
that  of  the  friend  who  had  been  introduced  to  them  as  Mr.  Har- 
ris the  year  before.  That  was  the  substance  of  Mrs.  Steptoe's 
story. 

"  They  were  that  surprised,"  she  said,  "  you  might  have  knocked 
either  of  'em  down  with  an  electric  shock.  'My  word,'  says  Mr. 
Hallock,  '  to  think  of  that ! '  he  says.  '  Then  Home  must  be 
dead,  and  that  girl  married  to  his  friend  already!  And  not  so 
much  as  a  letter ! '  .  .  .  Oh  yes !  Mr.  Hallock,  he  was  resentful 
like,  but  Mrs.  Hallock,  she  leans  across  to  him,  and  she  says:  'My 
dear,  it's  a  coincidence!  Kate  never  would — never!  I  knew  the 


257 

girl,'  she  says.  So  she  talked  him  down,  and  they  put  it  at  a  co- 
incidence, and  let  it  go." 

"  But  did  you  hear  no  more  ?  " 

"  They  heard — not  me !  Or  only  remarks  fell  by  chance.  There 
come  a  letter  next  day,  and  they  was  a-talking  and  she  a-crying 
over  it.  Little  scraps  they  let  drop,  loud  enough  to  reach.  '  Ho, 
the  miscreant ! '  and  '  The  licensual  scoundrel ! '  And  then  Mrs. 
Hallock  she  says :  '  Whatever  could  possess  us,  Edwin,  not  to  make 
more  certain  about  the  ceremony?'  Then  they  see  me,  and 
dropped  to  a  whisper.  Only  saying  to  me  after,  not  to  repeat  any- 
thing I'd  heard,  which  I  made  the  promise,  as  requested." 

"  There's  Mrs.  Challis  coming.  I  wish  you  could  have  been  more 
sure  of  the  names,  because  it's  interesting.  Couldn't  you  think 
them  up  a  little  ?  " 

Mrs.  Steptoe  cogitated.  Hallock,  of  course,  she  said.  Because 
she  knew  them  a  long  time.  But  the  other  names  hardly,  to  be 
any  surer.  Except  it  was  the  young  lady's  single  name.  Because 
that  she  see  in  the  newspaper,  when  she  come  to  look  at  the  ad- 
vertisement. Then  she  must  have  seen  the  bridegroom's  name,  said 
her  interrogator.  It  seemed  not;  the  glance  was  a  hurried  one. 
But  she  was  sure  about  the  girl's.  It  was  Catherine  Verrall. 

This  story  has  only  had  occasion  once  to  refer  to  the  name  of 
Challis's  first  wife,  Marianne's  half-sister.  And  though  Mrs. 
Eldridge  had  often  talked  with  her  friend  about  this  half-sister, 
dead  five  or  six  years  before  the  families  became  acquainted,  it  was 
always  about  "  Kate " — no  other  name — or  "  my  sister "  when 
Marianne  was  the  speaker.  It  is  quite  an  open  question  whether 
she  would  at  once  have  felt  the  name  familiar,  if  it  had  not  been 
for  Bob's  full  name.  Her  knowledge  that  it  was  Robert  Verrall 
Challis  was  perhaps  what  made  her  say,  "What? — what's  that? — 
did  you  say  Verrall  ? "  with  stimulated  interest.  Mrs.  Steptoe  re- 
peated "  Catherine  Verrall "  quite  distinctly,  just  as  her  mistress, 
returning,  opened  the  door.  Mrs.  Eldridge  hoped,  without  having 
had  time  to  make  up  her  mind  why,  that  Marianne  had  not  heard 
the  name.  For  a  few  moments  she  thought  she  had  not.  The 
whole  thing  happened  very  rapidly. 

Mrs.  Steptoe  delivered  her  reminder  about  Huntley  and  Palmer's 
Oatmeal  Biscuits,  to  be  ordered  with  the  stores.  Mrs.  Challis  had 
not  forgotten  them.  One  or  two  other  small  matters  were  referred 
to,  and  then  Mrs.  Steptoe  said  good-night  with  due  humility,  and 
departed.  She  was  instructed  not  to  sit  up  for  Master  Bob,  who 
had  gone  to  a  neighbour's  to  assist  in  acting  charades.  Marianne 
would  let  him  in.  She  did  not  recume  her  seat  by  the  fire,  but 


258  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lay  down  on  the  sofa,  away  from  it.  She  had  a  flushed,  turbulent 
look,  and  a  smell  of  eau-de-Cologne,  backed  by  ruffled  hair  over  the 
forehead,  conveyed  the  idea  that  she  had  been  putting  it  on  her 
face,  to  cool  it.  Mrs.  Eldridge  felt  uneasy.  Had  she  gone  too  far  ? 

"  Was  it  all  right  about  the  flannels  ? "  she  asked. 

"I  think  so.  I  don't  know.  I  didn't  see  Martha.  I  felt  sick, 
and  lay  down.  .  .  .  Oh  yes ! — I'm  all  right  now." 

"  No,  you're  not,  dear !  You  look  very  flushed.  Shan't  I  get 
something  ?  A  little  brandy-and-water  ? " 

"  Oh  heavens,  no ! — make  me  sick !  Like  on  the  steamer — the 
very  idea  makes  me  ill !  There's  nothing  the  matter." 

Mrs.  Eldridge  wasn't  convinced.  Should  she  open  the  window 
to  let  a  little  air  in?  She  was  one  of  those  plaguing  people  that 
will  remedy,  whether  you  like  it  or  no.  Mrs.  Challis  repulsed  her 
open-window  movement  with  some  asperity ;  reduced  her  to  fiddling 
with  her  screen  with  a  fixed  gaze  of  solicitude,  fraught  with  ulti- 
matums about  medical  advice,  failing  prompt  improvement  in  the 
patient. 

Marianne  remained  still  on  the  sofa,  with  her  eyes  closed  for  a 
few  minutes.  Then  she  said  suddenly,  rather  as  one  who  turns  to 
an  offered  relief :  "  What  were  you  and  Steptoe  saying  about  my 
sister  when  I  came  in  ?  " 

Her  hearer  started;  grasped  the  coincidence  of  name  fully  for 
the  first  time  probably.  "Your  sister,  Marianne.  .  .  .  Why, 
how  ? "  And  then,  with  a  complete  perplexity :  "  How  could  that 
be?" 

"My  sister  was  Catherine  Verrall — my  sister  Kate,  that  died. 
Why  were  you  talking  about  her  ? " 

"  It  must  have  been  another  Catherine  Verral — must  have  been." 

"  Who  must  have  been  ? " 

"  This  girl.  Stop,  and  I'll  tell  you !  .  .  .  But,  really,  the  co- 
incidence I "  And,  indeed,  Mrs.  Charlotte  seems  almost  knocked 
silly  by  it,  as  the  pugilists  say.  Marianne  is  roused  and  interested 
at  her  perplexity — sits  up  on  the  sofa  fanning  herself  with  her 
pocket-handkerchief — seems  half  inclined  to  laugh. 

"What's  it  all  about,  Charlotte?"  she  says,  and  then  adds — a 
little  passing  tribute  to  the  memory  abruptly  revived — "Poor 
Kate!" 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  of  course  it's  nothing  to  do  with  poor  Kate. 
Just  an  odd  coincidence  of  a  girl  Mrs.  Steptoe  knew  at  Ramsgate,  I 
think — years  ago  I  " 

"Kate  was  at  Ramsgate,  though,  when  I  was  a  child.  She 
taught  music  to  some  people's  children.  What  was  their  name- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  259 

now  ? "  But  the  name  would  not  come  back,  on  any  terms.  Mari- 
anne gave  it  up.  Her  friend  felt  actually  glad,  for  the  puzzle  was 
too  incisive  to  be  pleasant. 

"  Very  likely  she  was  at  Ramsgate.  Why  not  ?  But  she  hadn't 
been  twice  a  widow  when  she  married  your  Titus,  at  any  rate. 
Come,  Marianne ! " 

"  Certainly  not !  She  wasn't  nineteen,  for  one  thing.  Was  this 
coincidence-lady  a  widow  ?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  tell  you  the  story  ?  " 

"Much  better,  I  should  say."  On  which  Mrs.  Eldridge  repeats 
Mrs.  Steptoe's  tale,  neither  confounding  the  persons  nor  dividing 
the  substance,  but  with  a  tendency — very  common  in  narratives  we 
pass  on  to  others,  but  ourselves  have  no  part  in — to  substitute  de- 
scriptions or  epithets  for  names.  Thus  the  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallock 
of  the  original  narrative  appeared  as  "  this  lady  and  gentleman  " 
until  Mrs.  Challis,  whose  puzzled  look  was  on  the  increase,  asked  a 
question  about  them : 

"  What  were  they — this  lady  and  gentleman  ?  What  was  their 
name?" 

"  I  fancy  he  was  a  coal-merchant  or  dealer  in  something.  Mrs. 
Steptoe  didn't  say.  The  name  was  Hallock."  Mrs.  Challis  sprang 
up  from  the  sofa,  excitedly. 

"  Charlotte  I— what  did  you  say?    Hallock?" 

"  Yes— Hallock.    Why  not  ? " 

Marianne's  breath  is  quite  taken  away.  "But  that  is  the 
name  I  had  forgotten — Hallock,"  she  says,  as  soon  as  she  can  speak. 
"  They're  in  one  of  those  photographs  in  the  old  book — the  one  I 
brought  from  mother's."  Her  speech  is  rapid  and  frightened.  The 
strangeness  of  the  story  is  getting  its  mastery ;  and  she  feels,  with- 
out imaging  them,  the  ambushes  in  wait  for  her.  "  Oh  dear !  "  she 
gasps,  sinking  back  again  on  the  sofa,  "  all  this — it's  so  odd ! 
Charlotte,  I'm  afraid  to  look  at  the  photograph." 

Charlotte's  nerves  are  stronger,  and  she  has  recovered  from  the 
momentary  alarm  her  friend  had  given  her;  is  ready,  one  might 
say,  to  be  in  mischief  again.  "  Don't  be  a  goose,  Marianne,"  she 
says.  "You're  frightened  of  everything.  Do  let's  get  the  thing 
explained,  dear,  instead  of  going  dotty  over  it.  Which  photograph 
book  is  it?  ...  left-hand  chiffonier?  .  .  .  no? — right-hand 
...  top  shelf?  .  .  ,  No! — I  won't  make  a  mess.  ...  I  ex- 
pect it's  this." 

It  was,  and  it  exactly  confirmed  Mrs.  Eldridge's  anticipation  of  a 
coal-merchant  and  his  wife,  two  young  daughters,  and  a  governess 
a  few  years  older  than  themselves.  A  stupid  seaside  photographer's 


260 

group,  but  with  well-marked  face-features.  The  artist's  address  in 
a  little  oval  underneath,  conspicuously  Ramsgate. 

"  Of  course  it's  all  some  confusion  of  Mrs.  Steptoe's,"  says  Mrs. 
Eldridge.  She  knows  she  is  talking  nonsense,  but  she  wants  to 
calm  all  troubled  waters  while  she  gets  her  curiosity  satisfied. 
"  You'll  see  she  won't  recognize  any  of  these — unless  you  give  her 
hints,  Marianne." 

This  is  unprovoked,  and  Marianne  resents  it.  "  Show  them  to 
her  when  I'm  not  there  if  you  like.  Show  her  now  and  I'll  go. 
Only  I'm  afraid  they're  gone  to  bed."  If  they  have,  no  harm  in 
ringing  the  bell !  It  is  rung,  and  evolves  Harmood,  apologetic  for 
not  having  gone  up  yet  And  then  Mrs.  Steptoe,  even  more  so. 

Marianne  does  not  go,  but  then  that  was  mere  talk.  Mrs. 
Eldridge  wants  Steptoe — so  she  tells  her — to  see  if  she  recognizes 
a  photograph.  Aunt  Stingy  is  not  dissatisfied  to  be  consulted 
about  anything.  Mrs.  Eldridge  shows  diplomacy,  astutely  getting 
her  to  identify  Mrs.  Challis  at  different  ages.  Having  put  the  wit- 
ness on  a  false  scent,  she  shows  the  group,  and  asks :  "  Now  which 
of  those  is  Mrs.  Challis  ? " 

The  witness  tried  to  find  an  excuse  for  identification,  but  failed. 
But  having  admitted  failure,  why  hold  so  tightly  to  the  photo- 
album  ? 

"  Well,  Mrs.  Steptoe  ? "  Mrs.  Eldridge  speaks. 

"  Nothing,  ma'am.  Oh  no ! — only  what  unaccountably  caught 
my  eye.  Nothing  to  detain.  What  would  be  termed  an  im- 
pression." She  relinquished  the  album  slowly  with  a  vaguely  con- 
structed "  Excusin'  the  liberty  I  took,  I'm  sure !  " 

"  You  noticed  something,  Mrs.  Steptoe  ?  " 

"  In  the  manner  of  speaking,  yes !  But  not  to  detain.  It  just 
cut  across  me  like  .  .  .  yes,  ma'am,  thank  you,  just  a  minute ! " 
For  Mrs.  Eldridge  had  said,  "  Look  at  it  again,"  and  handed  the 
open  book  back. 

Aunt  Stingy  looked  and  looked,  in  more  and  more  visible  be- 
wilderment. Pressed  to  explain  it,  she  at  last  said :  "  I  can't  make 
no  less  of  it,  put  it  how  you  may.  That's  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallock  I 
was  telling  of,  just  now  half-an-hour  gone.  And  that  is  the  young 
lady." 

Iterations,  stimulated  by  an  incredulity  Mrs.  Eldridge  affects  in 
order  to  procure  them,  are  interrupted  by  a  knock  at  the  front 
door.  Mrs.  Steptoe  departs  to  open  it.  It  is  Mr.  Eldridge,  to 
accompany  his  wife  home.  He  is  not,  she  says,  to  hurry  and  fuss, 
but  to  sit  down  and  wait,  and  not  knock  things  over.  He  makes 
the  remark,  "  Somethin'  up !  Easy  does  it ! "  implying,  perhaps, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  261 

readiness  to  wait  for  enlightenment,  and  becomes  seated,  but 
knocks  nothing  over.  His  wife  throws  him  a  gleam,  to  live  on. 
"  We  are  discussing  the  identity  of  a  photograph,"  she  says. 

An  occurrence  interposes,  Master  Bob's  arrival ;  the  toleration  for 
a  few  brief  moments  of  exultation  over  the  evening's  successes, 
and  his  dismissal  to  bed,  rather  disgusted  at  Europe's  want  of  ap- 
preciation. Then  Mrs.  Steptoe,  who  had  retired  to  admit  him,  re- 
enters  and  resumes. 

"  Those  are  the  parties  I  told  you,  ma'am,"  says  she,  in  an  un- 
dertone of  confidence  brought  forward  from  the  previous  con- 
versation, rather  definitely  exclusive  of  the  newcomer,  who  had 
overlapped  it.  But  he  has  his  ideas,  and  as  soon  as  he  has  thor- 
oughly polished  with  his  wrist  the  bridge  of  a  nose  he  has  just 
blown,  he  offers  counsel : 

"  No  name  on  'em  ?  Look  on  the  back.  Look  on  the  edges  where 
they  tuck  in.  Nothin'  like  lookin' ! "  His  wife  accepts  the  sug- 
gestion without  tribute  to  his  sagacity;  and  when  the  photo  is 
slipped  from  the  passepartout,  there  on  the  back  is  plainly  written : 
"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hallock,  Nelly,  Totty,  and  self.  June,  1888." 

"  She'll  be  all  right,"  said  Mrs.  Eldridge,  returning  to  her  hus- 
band in  the  drawing-room  a  quarter  of  an  hour  later.  For  Mrs. 
Challis,  already  upset  by  her  previous  interview  with  her  friend, 
had  been  in  no  condition  to  have  it  burst  upon  her  suddenly  that 
important  events — which  she  could  not  the  least  understand,  so 
far — relating  to  her  sister's  life,  and  perhaps  to  his  own,  had  been 
concealed  from  her  by  this  husband  whom  she  was  now  called 
upon  to  have  so  much  faith  in.  She  had  completely  broken  down ; 
had  left  the  room  white  as  ashes,  having  been  previously  flushed 
and  feverish;  and  had  nearly  fainted  away  on  the  stairs.  She  had 
been  got  safely  to  bed,  and  had  so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able  to 
say  that  she  should  go  to  sleep  soon.  Perhaps  her  chief  wish  was 
to  be  let  alone.  She  wanted  to  think  to  the  bottom  of  this  photo- 
graph story.  What  was  it  all  about? 

But  Mr.  Eldridge  perceived  that  this  sort  of  weather  was  trying 
to  some  constitutions,  and  suggested  drastic  treatment.  His  wife 
said,  "Be  quiet  while  I  write  this,"  and  ignored  his  suggestions. 
She  wrote  a  brief  note  to  Mr.  Challis,  and  left  it  in  his  bedroom 
candlestick  on  the  hall-table  outside.  He  was  sure  to  see  it.  She 
then  asked  her  husband  whether  he  was  coming,  or  was  going  to 
go  on  mooning  there  indefinitely.  He  chose  the  former  course 
without  insisting  on  closer  definition  of  the  latter. 

A  couple  of  hours  later  Alfred  Challis  paid  a  cabman  a  shilling 


262  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

too  much,  to  avoid  discussion,  through  his  confessional  guichet 
overhead,  and  escaped  from  a  guillotine — thanks  to  its  momentary 
forbearance — in  a  steady  shower  of  rain  that  had  heard  that  the 
wind  had  fallen,  and  caught  at  the  opportunity  to  come  down.  It 
was  lucky  he  had  a  waterproof  on,  though  he  had  only  to  negotiate 
the  garden's  length  to  reach  shelter  and  discover  his  latchkey. 

He  was  not  in  the  best  of  humours;  all  the  more  so  that  Miss 
Arkroyd,  who  was  to  have  accompanied  the  Ross  Tarbets,  had  been 
unable  to  do  so  on  account  of  a  sprained  ankle — a  trifle  in  itself, 
but  warranted  to  become  serious  if  walked  on. 

Seeing  the  envelope  after  lighting  his  candle,  he  opened  it  and 
read  the  note.  His  comments,  in  their  order,  were  a  "  Hm — hm !  " 
of  concern  and  apprehension,  another  with  some  impatience  in  it,  a 
grunt  with  nothing  else,  and  a  suppressed  "  Damn  the  woman ! " 
He  read  it  twice,  and  again,  and  went  upstairs  noiselessly. 

Marianne  was  not  asleep.  She  was  wide  awake,  and  wholesomely 
disposed  to  trust  her  husband,  and  tell  the  events  of  the  evening  at 
whatever  risk.  It  would  have  to  come  out  some  time.  Besides,  the 
relief  of  knowing,  either  way!  However,  to  tell  him  as  natural 
sequence  to  an  enquiry  how  things  had  gone  with  her  was  one 
thing;  to  rush  the  position  another.  She  could  not  bring  herself 
to  call  out  to  him — so  little  concerned  about  her  as  to  make  no  such 
enquiry,  and  still  scintillating,  as  it  were,  with  sparks  from  the 
brilliancies  of  his  evening's  entertainment — to  come  into  her  room 
and  hear  the  story.  No,  let  him  go — him  and  his  Grosvenor 
Squares  and  Countesses! 

Meanwhile  he,  however  little  weight  he  attached  to  anything 
Charlotte  Eldridge  said,  conceived  that  he  was  on  the  safe  side  in 
paying  attention  to  what  she  enjoined  about  a  patient  whom  she 
had  seen,  and  he  had  not.  She  might  have  been  more  definite 
about  the  nature  of  the  attack.  It  was  just  like  her  to  make  a  mys- 
tery of  it.  But  it  was  evidently  better  to  take  her  hint  not  to  dis- 
turb his  wife — now  at  near  one  in  the  morning!  Challis  made  as 
little  noise  as  possible,  and  got  to  bed  in  his  own  room,  next  to 
hers,  without  opening  the  door  between  lest  he  should  wake  her. 

This  was  the  text  of  Mrs.  Charlotte's  letter : 

"  She  is  much  better,  and  will  sleep.  John  and  I  both  think  you 
need  not  be  the  least  alarmed.  She  has  been  too  much  excited 
lately,  but  will  be  all  right  now.  Be  very  careful  not  to  disturb  her 
when  you  go  up.  I  will  try  to  come  round  in  the  morning.  C.  E." 


CHAPTER  XXI 

HOW  JIM  RETURNED  HOME,  ALL  BUT  ONE  LEG,  AND  LIZARANN  CALLED  ON 
HIM.  HAD  THE  DEVIL  GOT  UNCLE  BOB?  HOW  BRIDGETTICKS  HAD 
HEARD  OF  A  SCHEME  FOR  LIZARANN'S  BENEFIT 

LIZARANN'S  deferred  hopes  of  being  allowed  to  rejoin  her  Daddy 
made  her  heart  sick,  but  they  never  ceased  to  be  hopes.  No  under- 
current of  despair  made  itself  felt.  If  Teacher's  reassuring  tones 
had  not  been  sufficient,  were  there  not  the  gentleman's,  known  to 
Lizarann's  direct  simplicity  as  Mr.  Yorick — a  designation  remain- 
ing uncontradicted  in  his  laughing  acceptance  of  it.  But  he  was 
going  back  to  his  own  Rectory,  in  order  that  Gus  should  be  once 
more  in  harness  at  St.  Vulgate's — his  own  proper  field  of  labour — 
during  the  approaching  Holy  Week.  The  invalid  was  enormously 
better;  so  he  himself  said. 

However,  Mr.  Yorick  was  destined  before  his  departure  to  put 
the  crowning  corner-stone  on  the  fabric  of  Lizarann's  affection  for 
himself. 

"  Now,  Miss  Coupland,"  said  he,  "  you  sit  still !  And  don't  kick ! 
And  then  tell  me  where  you  suppose  you  are  going  to  be  taken  to- 
day." 

Lizarann  was  cautious — wouldn't  commit  herself.  "Who's 
a-going  to  tight  me  ?  "  she  asked,  to  get  a  clue. 

"  Me,"  said  Mr.  Yorick,  falling  to  the  grammatical  level  of  his 
company.  "  I'm  going  to  take  you,  as  soon  as  ever  you've  guessed 
where.  But  only  one  guess,  mind !  " 

Lizarann  thought  this  shabby.  But  then,  after  all,  when  there  is 
only  one  guess  worth  making,  you  may  just  as  well  use  it  up  and 
have  done  with  it.  She  looked  from  one  of  the  faces  that  was 
watching  to  the  other,  and  back ;  then  risked  her  guess.  "  To 
Daddy  in  the  Sospital !  "  she  fairly  shouted.  But,  alas ! — disap- 
pointment was  in  store  for  her. 

"No!    Not  Daddy  in  the  Sospital.    Guess  again." 

"  Oh,  Yorick,  how  can  you  ?  Playing  with  the  child !  I 
shouldn't  have  thought  you  could  be  so  wicked.  No,  Lizarann  dear, 
don't  you  believe  him!  Daddy's  out  of  the  Hospital,  and  you're 

263 


264  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

to  go  and  see  him.  There !  .  .  .  I'm  telling  the  truth,  child !  " 
For  Lizarann,  bewildered,  still  glances  from  one  to  the  other. 

"  That's  it,  Lizarann.  Not  Daddy  in  the  Sospital,  but  Daddy 
out  of  the  Sospital.  Now  wrap  up  warm,  and  we'll  go  at  once." 
A  wild  shriek  of  delight,  an  "  undue  subordination  "•  of  limbs,  as 
in  pictures  of  a  debased  period,  and  a  rush  for  wraps,  is  followed, 
we  are  sorry  to  say,  by  some  coughing.  There  is  no  such  thing  as 
flawless  event  anywhere. 

"  Oh  no ! — it  won't  do  her  any  harm  to  go  out,"  says  Teacher. 
"  Dr.  Ferris  said  it  might  do  her  good  if  it  got  mild.  Now,  Lizar- 
ann!— Mr.  Yorick's  ready."  For  this  Monday,  known  to  the  Rev. 
Gus  as  "  Annunciation,"  and  to  most  of  his  flock  as  Lady  Day — a 
dreadful  day  when  your  rent  isn't  ready — had  come  as  a  herald  of 
early  spring,  and  a  belief  in  violets  was  in  the  air. 

"  How  far  mustn't  we  go  to  the  Sospital  ? "  Lizarann  speaks 
obscurely,  but  the  meaning  is  clear  to  her  conductor.  How  long 
is  the  road  we  are  not  going  to  the  Hospital  on? — surely  that's 
clear. 

"How  far  is  it  to  Daddy?  Daddy's  at  home."  And,  surely 
enough,  when  Mr.  Yorick  comes  to  Tallack  Street  he  turns  the 
corner.  This  bewilders  Lizarann. 

"But  Aunt  Stingy,  she's  took  a  place,"  she  says.  She  is  not 
certain  of  the  exact  sense  of  her  words.  The  place  might  be 
Badajoz;  or  a  Chancellorship  of  something,  with  a  portfolio.  But 
it  doesn't  matter!  In  either  case,  Aunt  Stingy  has  left  her  home 
desolate — cookless!  Again  Lizarann  is  sympathetically  under- 
stood. 

"Your  Daddy's  being  seen  to,  Miss  Coupland.  So  he  won't 
starve.  Here  we  are ! "  And  it  is  actually  true !  Lizarann  ia 
back  in  the  home  she  has  been  eight  weeks  away  from.  For  al- 
though of  late  the  child  had  been  allowed  out,  cautiously,  no  ex- 
pedition had  covered  the  half-mile  between  the  school  and  Tallack 
Street.  It  is  actually  true  that  she  is  back  there  now,  and  wild 
with  delight  on  the  knee  her  Daddy  still  has  left  for  her — in  a  rap- 
ture of  tears  and  laughter  that  can  just  allow — but  only  just — the 
moderation  of  deportment  called  for  when  knees  but  lately  the  sub- 
jects of  comminuted  fractures  are  sat  upon,  even  by  very  light 
weights. 

Jim  was  garrulous  about  the  Hospital,  and  the  kindness  and  at- 
tention he  had  received  there.  "  Yes,  master,  I  was  main  sorry  to 
come  away,  one  side  o'  lookin'  at  it.  I'll  carry  the  doctor-gentle- 
man and  Nurse  Lucy  in  my  mind  a  long  day  on.  Many^s  the  time 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  265 

I  said  to  myself  what  I'd  be  tellin'  of  'em  to  the  little  lass,  home 
again.  There  was  a  bit  o'  sameness,  as  might  be,  when  you  think 
of  it,  and  I  got  fixed  uneasy-like  about  the  lass.  But,  dear  Lard 
bless  you ! — there  was  a  many  there  worse  off  than  me.  Why,  there 
was  that  pore  chap  you  see,  next  bed  off  on  the  right !  How  might 
you  suppose  he  come  there  ? " 

"Don't  know,  Jim;  give  it  up!  How  was  it?"  Mr.  Yorick 
does  all  the  conversation.  Lizarann  will  find  her  tongue  presently, 
•when  she  and  Daddy  are  alone.  At  present  she  merely  nestles  to 
him,  speechless,  but  blissful.  Jim  pursues  his  topic: 

"  As  I  made  it  out,  master,  it  was  this  sort  o'  way :  It  was  a 
kind  o'  small-arms  factory,  and  there  was  two  young  wenches  in  the 
finishin'  shop  o'  one  mind  about  him.  So  it  came  to  making  ch'ice, 
for  him.  And  one  o'  them,  by  name  Clara,  she  warns  him  if  she 
catches  him  sweethearting  with  her  shopmate,  she'd  just  mark  him. 
Both  decent  girls,  ye  see!  And  she  was  all  as  good  as  her  word, 
with  a  little  pot  of  vitrol,  right  in  his  eyes!  And  ho  run,  roaring 
mad  with  pain,  and  was  caught  in  the  machinery,  and  made  a 
spoiled  man  of,  as  I  reckon,  all  his  days.  Name  of  Linklater." 

"  What  a  terrible  business !  And  it  may  have  been  he  wasn't  to 
blame,  either." 

"  No — pore  chap !  He'd  just  no  consolation,  as  you  might  say. 
I  count  myself  a  well-off  man,  set  against  him.  Just  wait  a  bit, 
master,  and  see  me  when  I'm  clear  of  them  crutches.  Once  I  get 
to  use  my  stick  again,  anybody*!!  say,  to  see  me :  '  Why,  there's  a 
man  ain't  got  anything  the  matter  with  him ! '  Nor  yet  I  shan't 
have,  to  speak  of !  " 

Athelstan  Taylor  could  not  help  comparing  Jim's  resolute  op- 
timism— poor  crushed  wreck  that  he  was! — with  his  sister's  ag- 
gressive meekness  and  its  pious  claim  to  resignation  or  uncom- 
plaining acquiescence  in  what  was  really  a  most  happy  release, 
though  paraded  as  a  cruel  blow  of  Fate.  But  he  could  not  stay  to' 
chat.  He  had  to  get  back  to  St.  Vulgate's;  have  a  talk  about  the 
local  flock,  chiefly  goats,  with  his  friend,  who  had  come  home  the 
evening  before;  pack  his  trunk,  and  get  to  Euston  by  one-thirty, 
with  or  without  lunch.  So  he  had  only  a  few  more  hurried  words 
with  Jim. 

"  You'll  think  of  what  I  was  saying  to  you,  Jim  ? " 

"Sure,  master!" 

"  And  the  lassie  will  just  trot  back  to  Miss  Fossett,  before  if  s 
dark.  She'd  better;  the  house  might  be  cold  here.  Won't  you, 
Lizarann?"  Lizarann  will,  honour  bright!  "And  how  about 
those  kisses  I'm  to  take  to  my  own  little  girls?"  Payable  on  de- 


266  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

mand,  three  crossed  to  the  account  of  Phoebe,  three  to  Joan;  both 
names  being  now  familiar  to  drawer.  They  are  very  loud — those 
kisses!  Mr.  Yorick  says  farewell  and  goes.  Lizarann  and  her 
Daddy  are  again  alone  together.  Eight  whole  weeks ! 

Oh,  the  hours  that  had  seemed  weeks,  and  the  days  that  had 
seemed  years,  of  waiting — waiting  for  this  moment.  And  here  it 
was!  Daddy  himself — come  back  out  of  that  mysterious  Hospital, 
where  Lizarann  had  never  been  to  see  him!  No  wonder  Lizarann 
did  not  know  where  to  begin ! 

"  Well,  then,  little  lass !  They  haven't  cut  the  little  lass's  tongue 
out  amongst  'em  ? "  A  vehement  headshake  of  denial  precedes  the 
first  of  the  many  things  Lizarann  can  select,  at  random,  from  the 
multitude  she  has  been  resolving  to  tell  Daddy  all  through  this 
dreary  period  of  privation. 

"  Teacher's  new  cat's  black  all  over,  only  white  on  the  stomach. 
Yass !  And  four  of  the  kittens  was  drownded."  Jim's  sympathies 
are  all  ready  for  Teacher's  cat's  kittens.  But  he  is  not  further 
called  on  to  show  them,  for  the  child  deserts  the  kittens  almost  in- 
stantly with  "  Oh,  Daddy ! — they  took  you  to  the  Sospital." 

"  Coorse  they  did !     How  many  policeman  was  there,  lassie  ? " 

"  There  was  free  I  see  first.  And  one  he  turned  back  down  the 
road.  Only  there  was  men,  as  well  as  policemen." 

"Chaps?" 

"Yass!  And  there  was  the  boys.  And  there  was  a  woman. 
[And  there  was  another  woman.  Only  not  sober."  So  she  didn't 
count,  that  one;  was  civilly  disqualified,  as  it  were.  But  was  the 
sober  one  making  herself  of  use  ? — Jim  inquires.  "  She  wasn't 
finding  any  fault,"  is  all  the  testimony  Lizarann  can  give.  It 
seems  to  imply  that  the  drunken  one  was  indicting  the  executive. 
Lizarann  finishes  up  her  report:  "Then  there  was  Mother  Groves, 
and  the  'ot-chestnut  stall  at  the  corner,  and  the  Young  Varmint." 
For  this  is  the  name — no  less — by  which  Frederick  Hawkins  is 
known  to  Lizarann  and  her  Daddy. 

"  So  there  they  all  was,  the  biling  of  'em,"  said  Jim.  "  And 
there  was  Daddy,  he'd  got  himself  under  a  cart,  and  was  a  bit  the 
worse  by  it.  And  his  little  lass,  she  come  and  kissed  him,  for  to 
cheer  him  up — hay,  lassie?  Nor  never  cried,  nor  made  no  noise, 
like  he  told  her  not  to." 

Lizarann  felt  proud  and  happy.  But  she  could  not  endure  a 
position  with  the  slightest  false  pretence  in  it.  "  I  did  cried,  too," 
she  said,  "  when  I  got  so  far  as  Dartley  Street.  And  the  boy,  he 
says  not  to  water-cart." 

"  The  Young  Varmint? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  267 

"  Yass !  He  toldited  me  his  nime,  he  did.  Hawkins — Frederick 
— Hawkins."  Lizarann  gives  the  exact  words  the  boy  had  said. 
"  And  he  says  not  to  water-cart  because  of  his  aunt  and  uncle. 
Took  to  the  Sospital  quite  flat  they  was,  and  begun  singing  a  fort- 
night after !  "  Jim  made  concession  to  the  Young  Varmint — went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  he  would  not  warm  his  hide  for  him  this 
time,  pr'aps!  But  he  spoke  without  confidence  of  the  like  absten- 
tion being  justified  in  the  future. 

"  And  then  the  lassie  come  home,"  said  he.  "  And  who  come  to 
the  door?" 

"Only  me,  Daddy!" 

"Ah! — but  t'other  side — who  come?" 

"  Uncle  Bob  didn't  come  to  the  door,  only  he  set  it  just  on  the 
jar  for  me  to  push."  Clearly  "  coming  to  a  door  "  involves  opening 
it  wide  for  friends,  or  conferring  with  strangers  to  learn  their  rea- 
son for  knocking  or  ringing.  He  who  takes  letters  from  a  letter- 
box does  not  go  to  the  door,  even  if  he  rushes  downstairs  like  a 
madman  when  the  postman's  knock  comes. 

You  may  be  sure  that  Lizarann's  narrative  that  followed  was 
full  of  little  niceties  of  language,  as  spoken  in  Tallack  Street. 
But  you  have  had  all  the  substance,  and  it  need  not  be  repeated  in 
a  new  form. 

Jim  interspersed  the  story  of  the  suppression  of  his  delirious 
brother-in-law  with  exclamations  of  applause.  Lizarann  deserved 
what  the  players  call  "  a  hand  "  now  and  again  for  the  vivacity  of 
her  descriptive  report  of  the  knife  scene,  with  its  dramatic  ending 
of  the  application  of  the  spent  lucifer-match  to  Uncle  Bob's  hand. 
"  He  just  give  one  scroatch,  and  there  he  was !  "  The  introduction 
of  a  new  self-explanatory  word  into  the  language  alone  deserved 
recognition.  But  Jim  was  not  concerned  with  this.  The  conduct 
of  Athelstan  Taylor  in  a  difficult  position  took  his  attention  off 
minor  points. 

"  I  could  have  named  the  sart  of  man  he  was,"  said  he,  speaking 
half  to  himself,  "from  the  feel  of  his  hand,  and  maybe  no  more 
than  just  a  '  Good-marning,  mate ! '  by  the  way.  And — but  to 
think  of  it! — him  a  parson!"  Jim  couldn't  get  over  this  at  all. 
He  dwelt  on  the  unfitness  of  the  arrangement :  a  Now,  if  they'd  'a 
made  pore  Bob  a  parson,  it  might  'a  broke  him  of  his  habit,  and 
we'd  not  have  had  a  bad  miss  of  him  on  our  side."  He  seemed  to 
go  on  thinking  of  the  subject  in  all  its  aspects — possibly  of  the 
utilization  of  ecclesiastical  preferments  as  an  antidote  to  drunken- 
ness. But  his  fingers  kept  wandering  about  his  little  girl's  face 
and  head,  as  if  to  detect  the  change  eight  weeks  had  made  in  it 


268  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"Uncle  Bob's  dead,"  said  she,  getting  closer  to  say  it,  in  a 
dropped,  awe-struck  voice. 

"Ah — he's  dead!  He  might  have  turned  over  a  better  day's 
work,  mayhap !  But  Lard ! — if  you  come  to  that,  what  a  many  of 
us  mightn't !  Poor  Bob !  " 

"Does  it  hurt,  Daddy?" 

"  Does  what  hurt,  lassie  ? " 

"  Being  dead." 

"I  reckoned  you  might  mean  my  old  leg.  .  .  .  No — it  don't 
hurt,  bless  you ! — not  good  little  lassies,  like  mine.  Other  folks'  I 
couldn't  say  about.  They  do  say  the  Devil  gets  some  on  'em,  now 
and  again.  But  he  ain't  a  sartainty,  himself.  Though  in  coorse 
he  manages  all  he  can  see  his  way  to."  That  is  to  say  that,  un- 
less handicapped  by  absolute  non-existence,  Satan  might  be  trusted 
to  do  his  best  to  get  all  bad  little  lassies. 

Lizarann  knew  her  catechism,  and  all  that  was  necessary  for  her 
salvation,  as  school-knowledge.  But  she  could  not  help  being  curi- 
ous about  these  things  as  actual  facts — knowledge-knowledge,  one 
might  say.  Daddy  could  be  relied  on.  Why  not  go  straight  to  the 
point?  So  after  some  mere  conversation-making  about  whether 
Mr.  Winkleson  had  ever  actually  seen  the  Devil,  Lizarann  did  so. 
"  Has  he  got  Uncle  Bob  ? "  she  asked. 

Her  father's  answer  was  not  consistent  with  his  previous  ex- 
pressions of  opinion.  "  Never  you  fear  for  him,  lass !  The  Devil 
don't  take  a  poor  chap  for  making  mistakes  with  his  grog.  And  as 
for  his  handling  that  knife  a  bit  too  free,  I  doubt  the  liquor  had 
just  got  the  mastery  of  him.  And  then,  you  know,  lass,  a  man 
ain't  himself  when  that  happens.  Ye  may  make  your  mind  easy 
about  Bob." 

So  Lizarann  felt  no  further  disquiet.  Perhaps  she  was  uncon- 
sciously soothed  by  observing  the  differences  of  opinion  among  her 
seniors — Mr.  Winkleson,  Teacher,  and  Daddy.  The  last  was  most 
likely  to  know,  and  gave  the  pleasantest  answer  to  the  problem. 

"And  there  was  my  little  lass  out  in  the  snow  in  her  night- 
shimmee.  To  think  of  that !  And  her  Daddy  all  the  while  no  more 
use  than  a  turned  turtle !  "  This  had  to  be  explained ;  and  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  conversation  was  risked,  owing  to  Lizarann's 
womanly  pity  for  turtles  on  their  backs  and  helpless.  However, 
this  very  pity  caused  reaction  towards  the  previous  questions,  as 
Jim's  situation  had  been  no  better  than  that  of  the  turtles. 
Lizarann  had  to  cry  a  little  over  this,  and  then  renewed  her  peti- 
tion— previous  applications  having  been  met  by  evasion  or  post- 
ponement— to  actually  see  the  wooden  substitute  for  a  limb  that,  in 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  269 

epite  of  its  boasted  efficacy,  compelled  her  Daddy  to  sit  on  a 
chair  with  more  or  less  disguise  of  coat  or  blanket  over  it,  both 
limbs  being  preferably  kept  horizontal  for  the  present.  But  she 
might  look  at  it,  sure,  might  Lizarann;  and,  indeed,  anyone  would 
have  thought,  to  see  Jim  exhibiting  the  business-end  of  a  very  new 
wooden  leg,  that  some  great  improvement  on  a  previous  unsatis- 
factory condition  had  been  attained.  The  little  woman  was  in- 
credulous about  this ;  and,  suspecting  guile,  put  her  Daddy  through 
a  severe  cross-examination. 

"  'Sposin'  you  was  obliged  to  it,  Daddy ;  'sposin'  you  had  to  walk 
all  the  way  up  Tallack  Street,  and  all  the  way  acrost  Cazenove 
Street,  and  all  the  way  acrost  Trott  Street  to  Blading  Street  where 
the  cart  was  .  .  .  ? " 

"  Lard,  lassie ! — I  could  do  it  on  my  head,  as  the  saying  is,  any 
minute  o'  the  week ! "  But  Jim  demurs  to  an  actual  performance 
— says  the  doctor  don't  allow  any  tricks  to  be  played.  Lizarann 
gives  the  point  up;  but,  oh  dear! — how  dreadfully  afraid  she  feels 
that  she  is  being  practised  on,  and  that  in  reality  this  shiny,  well- 
turned,  clean-leather-strapped  contraption  is,  after  all,  no  better — 
even  perhaps  worse — than  an  ordinary  human  foot.  She  will — she 
must ! — elicit  the  truth  somehow. 

"Daddy!" 

"Lassie!" 

"  When  you  was  out  on  the  yard-arm,  and  the  wind  was  a-f resh- 
enin'  up  from  the  south  ..." 

"  To  be  sure,  lass !  Freshening  to  a  three-quarter  gale,  and  none 
too  little  canvas  on  her.  .  .  .  Easy  ahead,  lassie !  "  Jim  is  only 
helping  the  memory  of  the  well-worn  story,  and  the  child  accepts 
the  prompting. 

"...  None  too  little  canvas  on  her.  And  Peter  Cortright  and 
Marmaduke  Flyn,  they  was  both  on  the  mainyard  reefin'  alongside. 
And  Peter  Cortright  he  sings  out  to  look  ..." 

"  Ah ! — and  your  Daddy,  he  looked,  and  there  he  see  her,  the 
Dutchman,  carrying  all  sail  afore  the  wind.  .  .  .  Well,  little  lass, 
and  what  o'  that  ? " 

"When  you  was  then,  'sposin'  you'd  only  had  a  wooden  leg!" 

Jim's  big  laugh  comes;  and  so  lost  is  he  in  his  little  lass,  so 
free  from  all  thought  of  his  own  great  privation,  even  in  the  face 
of  the  bygone  time,  that  he  can  make  it  a  heart-whole  laugh  and 
never  flinch. 

"'Sposin'  I'd  only  had  a  wooden  leg?  Well — as  I  reckon  it — I 
shouldn't  have  taken  much  notice.  Not  for  one  such!  If  you'd 
'a  named  two  wooden  legs  now,  lassie!  Thnt  might  have  consti- 


270  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tooted  a  poor  kind  of  holt  on  a  slippery  yard.  But  I  might  have 
made  a  shift  to  do,  even  at  that." 

Lizaraim  was  silenced,  but  not  convinced.  She  resolved  to 
thresh  the  subject  out  with  Bridgetticks,  whom  she  had  secretly 
resolved  to  call  upon  on  her  way  home.  Bridget  might  know 
nothing  about  wooden  legs,  but  she  could  cite  a  parallel  experience, 
having  herself  walked  on  her  brother's  stelts,  what  he  made  out  of 
two  broomsticks  and  the  foot'old  nyled  on,  and  mide  syfe  with  a 
scrop  of  narrer  iron  hooping.  She  would  refer  it  to  Bridgetticks 
whether  her  brother — or  a  Circus,  for  that  matter — could  walk 
upon  a  bare  yard,  of  which  her  own  image  was  akin  to  a  yard- 
measure,  with  a  pair  of  stelts.  If  she,  Bridget,  felt  confident  of 
her  brother's  powers,  no  doubt  Jim's  assurance  of  his  own  might 
have  been  well  grounded. 

"Doesn't  Aunt  Stingy  come  to  see  to  you,  Daddy?"  she  asked 
anxiously.  For  she  couldn't  see  no  sign  neither  of  breakfast,  nor 
yet  of  dinner,  nor  yet  of  supper. 

"  No — lassie !  Your  aunt,  she's  got  to  'tend  on  somebody  else, 
away  off  to  Wimbledon  Common;  and  these  here  Simses — or 
Groombridges ;  I  didn't  catch  the  name  right — she's  got  a  short 
let  to,  are  mostly  away  on  a  job.  So  she's  packed  together  her  bit 
of  furniture,  like  you  see  it,  and  Mrs.  Hacker,  she's  so  obliging  as 
to  give  me  her  time  and  attention;  'cos  the  master,  ye  see,  he  put 
the  matter  in  trim  for  me.  One  don't  look  for  hospital  fare  all 
the  days  of  one's  life." 

Lizarann  had  heard  where  her  aunt's  "place"  was,  but  her  ex- 
perience of  places  was  of  such  as  could  be  got  to  by  half -past  seven 
in  the  morning  and  come  back  to  sleep  at  home.  She  thought  now 
that  she  saw  her  way  to  enlightenment. 

"  Is  where  Aunt  Stingy's  gone  where  Mr.  Winkleson  lives  ?  " 

"  Never  a  bit  of  it,  lassie !  He's  by  name  Wilkins — Wilkinson 
Wilkins.  This  here's  Wimbledon,  a  place  with  a  Common  to  it.  I 
went  there  once,  for  to  see  a  review.  I  wouldn't  mind  going  to 
see  one  again,  and  take  the  little  lass."  Perhaps  he  meant  that  his 
child's  sight  would  serve  for  both ;  but  more  probably  it  was  an  in- 
stance of  the  strange  way  blind  folk  forget  their  own  blindness. 
"  Your  aunty,  she's  come  over  once  or  twice,  to  pack  up  her  traps 
and  make  straight,  but  I've  got  to  put  my  dependence  on  Mrs. 
Hacker,  so  far  as  I  can't  shift  for  myself." 

Lizarann  derived  from  this  and  what  followed  one  broad  im- 
pression that  the  history  of  No.  27,  Tallack  Street  had  reached  the 
end  of  a  chapter — the  one  that  contained  her  own  biography  to 
date.  Another,  that  Aunt  Stingy  would  be  much  less  in  evidence 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  271 

for  the  future.  Another,  that  a  new  force  had  come  into  her  life 
and  Daddy's — a  welcome  one,  connected  with  Miss  Fossett  and  Mr. 
Yorick.  She  had  a  happy  guardian-angel  sensation  about  this, 
and  took  it  to  her  bosom  with  only  one  slight  misgiving — that  they 
were  too  easily  duped  by  that  ridiculous  little  pipe  of  Dr.  Ferris's, 
that  would  hold  up  like  a  candlestick  certainly,  and  you  could 
blow  through  if  he  let  you,  but  that  was  impotent  for  every  other 
purpose. 

If  this  story  could  ask  its  reader  a  question  at  this  point,  it 
would  be :  "  Have  you  not  noticed  that  Lizarann  has  scarcely 
coughed,  all  through  this  long  interview  with  her  Daddy?"  It 
was  the  case,  anyhow,  and  rather  points  to  the  truth  of  what  a 
physician  once  said  to  ourself ,  the  writer :  "  If  in  the  early  stages 
of  lung-disease  doses  of  unalloyed  joy,  of  perfect  happiness,  could 
be  administered  three  times  a  day  to  the  patient,  the  later  stages 
would  be  much  rarer  than  they  are  at  present."  Certainly  Lizarann's 
happiness  had  almost  touched  rapture,  doubts  about  the  wooden 
leg  being  the  only  alloy  in  the  pure  gold.  And  she  certainly  had 
coughed  mighty  little.  Perhaps  Dr.  Ferris  would  have  known  what 
claim  Lizarann  had  to  be  considered  a  case  of  the  kind  referred  to. 

The  delightful  time  had  to  come  to  an  end,  and  Lizarann  found 
herself  compelled  to  say  good-bye.  Daddy  would  have  it  so,  al- 
though darkness  was  a  long  way  off  yet  awhile.  So  she  departed, 
bidden  first  to  go  to  Mrs.  Hacker's,  and  say  to  that  good  lady,  that 
she  was  on  no  account  to  be  in  any  tirrit  to  come  away  from  her 
own  supper  to  attend  to  Jim's,  for  that  he  had  got  his  pipe,  Lizar- 
ann having  helped  him  to  light  it, — a  thing  to  rejoice  at,  after  that 
one  defective  usage  of  an  Institution  otherwise  perfect — and  wasn't 
in  any  driving  hurry.  This  message  Lizarann  gave  fairly  honestly, 
in  an  interview  with  Mrs.  Hacker,  which — being  repeated  to  Jim — 
may  be  held  responsible  for  some  borrowed  phrases  used  lately  to 
describe  impressions  on  her  mind  of  his  surroundings.  But  she 
was  not  uneasy  about  him;  her  faith  in  Mr.  Yorick  was  too  great 
for  that. 

Having  given  her  message,  it  did  not  strike  her  as  a  serious 
transgression  to  pay  a  visit  to  Bridgetticks.  The  injunction  to  go 
straight  home  covered  the  line  of  road — did  not  deal  with  con- 
tinuity of  movement.  That  seemed  to  her  a  just  interpretation  of 
it.  But  of  course  not  stopping  only  five  minutes ! 

So  she  went  to  the  door  of  Bridgetticks,  and  shouted  through  its 
keyhole,  in  preference  to  knocking  or  ringing.  But  Bridget  was 
assisting  her  mother  at  the  washtub,  and  up  to  her  elbers  in  suds; 
so  she  sent  an  emissary  to  the  door  instead  of  going  herself.  He 


272  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

was  very  young,  and  was  eating  an  apple ;  he  was,  in  fact,  too  young 
and  crude  to  be  trusted  to  do  like  he  was  told;  and  he  put  a  false 
construction  on  his  mission,  endeavouring  to  spit  some  of  his 
apple  through  the  keyhole,  with  a  mistaken  hospitality.  His 
name  was,  as  pronounced,  Halexandericks.  His  bursts  of  laughter 
at  each  new  failure  of  his  attempts  on  the  keyhole  obscured  the 
voice  that  was  calling  through  it.  He  had  a  vacuous  though  not 
unpleasant  laugh. 

"I'll  let  you  know  directly,  if  you  don't  open  that  door," 
shouted  his  sister.  She  gave  close  particulars  of  the  means  she 
would  resort  to,  but  without  effect.  So  she  onsoapied  the  suds  off 
of  her  arms,  which  she  then  placed  akimbo,  and  went  herself;  not 
without  a  certain  dancing  effect,  in  consonance  with  a  rhythmic  ut- 
terance difficult  to  class  as  either  song  or  recitation.  Its  words 
were  certainly,  "  Waxy  diddle-iddle-iddle,  high-gee-wo !  "  ending  in 
a  pounce  on  Alexander,  who  spat  his  last  piece  of  apple  in  his  cap- 
tor's face  with  a  fiendish  crow  of  delight.  She  wiped  if  off  on  his 
costume  without  comment. 

"  I  seen  my  Daddy,"  said  Lizarann,  beaming,  when  the  door  was 
opened. 

"I  seen  him  afore  ever  you  did,"  said  Bridget,  not  to  be  out- 
done. "I  seen  him  fetched  along  in  a  cab,  last  night  just  on 
seven-thirty.  I  seen  him  holped  into  the  house." 

"  You  stery !  "  said  Lizarann,  hurt.  "  He  can  help  himself,  he 
can.  He  don't  call  for  no  help.  Who  was  helping  him  ?  " 

"  Clapham  Church  Parsing — same  as  see  your  uncle  Mr.  Steptoe 
drownded — and  rilewye-stytion  cabman  with  rilings  for  trunks 
atop.  Three  thousand  six  hundred  and  thirty-two.  Got  him  in- 
doors they  did." 

Lizarann  felt  inclined  to  cry;  this  was  a  throw-back!  But  she 
wasn't  one  to  give  in  easily.  "  My  Daddy  says  he  could  swarm  up 
the  rigging  as  soon  as  not,"  said  she.  "  Only  the  doctor  he  says  for 
to  keep  quiet  a  bit,  owing  to  prudence."  When  Lizarann  repeated 
phrases  lately  heard,  you  would  have  thought,  to  listen  to  her,  she 
was  quite  a  big  girl. 

Now,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  Lizarann  and  Bridgetticks 
had  not  met  during  the  past  eight  weeks.  On  the  contrary,  visits 
had  been  arranged,  by  request,  even  before  Lizarann  had  been 
thought  plenty  well  enough  for  school,  only  not  to  fret  herself. 
These  were  the  terms  in  which  Miss  Fossett's  Anne  confirmed  that 
lady's  opinion,  and  sanctioned  a  continued  study  of  arithmetic  and 
caligraphy.  But  intercourse  during  school-hours  is  fettered  by 
formula;  and  when  there's  carpets  and  the  bed  made  and  all,  you 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  273 

have  to  set  quiet,  and  it's  not  the  same  thing.  So  when  these  two 
found  themselves  once  more  in  their  old  haunt,  it  was  as  though  a 
ceremonial  padlock  had  been  removed  from  their  tongues.  Lizar- 
ann's  improved  exterior — for  Teacher  and  Anne  had  reconstructed 
it — clashed  a  little  with  Bridgetticks ;  but  the  principle  held  good. 
Here,  on  Mr.  'Icks's  doorstep,  when  an  imputation  of  falsehood  as 
an  exordium  to  any  reply  seemed  natural  and  genial,  neither 
speaker  felt  bound  to  check  her  inspirations.  Lizarann  and 
Bridgetticks  were  themselves  again. 

They  sat  on  the  doorstep,  cloze  or  no! — this  referred  to  Lizar- 
ann's  frock — and  Bridget  retained  her  younger  brother,  perhaps  for 
slight  rehearsals  of  the  vengeance  she  had  in  store  for  him;  he  was 
that  troublesome!  Bridget  smelt  of  soap  and  warm  steam. 

"  You  wented  on  stelts,  and  wooden  legs  is  better  than  stelts ! " 
Lizarann's  uneasiness  rankles,  and  she  longs  for  public  ac- 
knowledgment of  her  Daddy's  prospects  of  rehabilitation. 

"  I  shouldn't  'a  said  so,"  Bridget  answered.  "  Stelts  you  catches 
hold  atop.  Wooden  legs  is  balancin'.  Stelts  is  your  hands  as 
well  as  your  legs.  Wooden  legs  you're  stood-on-end  and  pitches 
yourself  over,  just  as  like  as  not.  Not  onlest  you  have  crutches. 
Your  Daddy  he  's  crutches,  he  has.  I  see  'em  myself !  "  Lizarann 
could  say  nothing  about  Job's  comforters,  if  only  because,  on  the 
one  occasion  when  she  had  heard  them  mentioned — by  Mr.  Winkle- 
son — she  had  supposed  them  to  be  woollen  ones.  Besides,  she  was 
interested  on  another  point. 

"  My  Daddy  hasn't  no  scratches,"  said  she.  She  had  caught 
their  name,  without  understanding  it,  when  her  father  used  it; 
and  now  decided  on  denying  them  provisionally,  pending  inquiry 
into  their  nature.  "  What's  a  scratch  ?  " 

"  Oh,  you  little  ignorance !  "  said  Bridget.  "  Never  to  know  what 
a  crutch  is,  at  your  age ! "  She  appealed  to  her  infant  brother  to 
say,  directly  minute,  what  a  crutch  was,  or  she  would  take  ad- 
vantage of  his  unprotected  youth  to  smack  him.  His  reply,  need- 
ing interpretation,  was  that  it  was  a  penny-farden.  Halexander- 
icks  had  evidently  a  turn  for  negotiation.  His  sister  cast  him  off, 
telling  him  to  go  and  ply  by  himself  on  the  pivement,  and  then  re- 
sumed: "If  you'd  'a  knowed  'em  when  you  seed  'em,  you  might 
have  kep'  your  eye  open,  and  took  note." 

Lizarann,  skipping  the  unnecessary,  immediately  replied: 
"Daddy  said  they  was  second-hand,  and  to  go  back  when  done 
with." 

Bridget  skipped  some  more.  "Very  well,  then! — you  see  them 
cross-pieces  for  the  'ands?  .  .  .  Very  well,  then! — there's  a 


274 

lather  pad  for  under  the  shoulder- j'int,  and  they're  n'isy  going 
down  the  street.  Now  don't  you  go  to  say  I  never  told  you." 
There  was  nothing  really  unkind  or  overbearing  in  Bridget's 
peculiar  manner;  it  was  only  the  strong  working  of  a  leading 
mind.  She  was,  in  fact,  a  very  clever  child,  being  less  than  two 
years  her  friend's  senior. 

She  saw  that  Lizarann  was  downcast  by  hearing  of  the  crutches, 
never  having  rightly  appreciated  the  position,  and  set  herself  good- 
naturedly  to  consolation.  "  It's  always  tender  where  your  leg's 
took  off,"  said  she,  "  and  you  want  something  to  ketch  the  weight, 
walking."  She  spoke  as  if  she  had  often  had  legs  off.  "  But  my 
father,  he  says  it's  nothing  to  get  the  hump  about,  with  a  little  ac- 
commodatin'.  And  I  seen  a  man  with  one  leg  and  one  crutch  took 
two  coppers  to  tike  him  to  the  stytion."  Lizarann  brightened  vis- 
ibly. "  You  see  what  your  Daddy  he'll  look  like  when  he's  been  a 
month  in  the  country !  " 

Obviously  this  was  repetition  of  something  said  by  an  older 
mouth.  "  Who  toldited  anything  about  the  country  ?  "  said  Lizar- 
ann. 

"  Clapham  Church  Parsing.  Him  as  see  Mr.  Steptoe  drownded. 
I  heard  him  telling.  '  You  see/ — he  says  to  your  Daddy — '  you 
see  what  you'll  feel  like  when  you've  been  a  month  in  the  country,' 
he  says.  '  You  do  just  as  I  tell  you,'  he  says,  '  and  I'll  make  it  all 
square  for  you,'  he  says.  And  then  he  says  you  to  go  too." 

"  Me ! "  Lizarann  exclaimed,  open-mouthed  with  amazement. 
And  then  Bridgetticks  gave  more  particulars  of  what  really  was  a 
bout  of  careful  eavesdropping  on  her  part,  she  having  succeeded  in 
overhearing  a  good  deal  of  conversation  between  Jim  and  the  Rec- 
tor of  Royd,  who  had  accompanied  him  from  the  Hospital  the  night 
before.  It  pointed  to  a  scheme  by  which  Lizarann  was  to  be  taken 
in  at  the  Rectory,  and  carefully  nurtured — treated,  in  fact,  for  a 
disease  which  had  existence  only  on  the  authority  of  that  lying 
little  stethoscope  of  Dr.  Ferris's!  However,  as  long  as  no 
project  involved  a  new  separation  from  Daddy,  what  did  Lizarann 
care? 

Besides,  look  at  the  new  experience  of  a  world  she  had  been  so 
little  in — it  was  glorious  to  think  of !  She  was  not  so  much  dazzled 
as  she  might  have  been  had  every  minute  of  her  life  been  passed — 
for  instance — in  Drury  Lane.  She  and  Bridget  had  both  benefited 
by  school-treats.  "I've  been  in  the  country,"  she  said.  "It's  at 
Dorking." 

But  Bridget  had  a  larger  horizon.  "  There's  more  sorts  than 
that,"  said  she,  "  without  taking  count  of  f  oring  parts.  Like  you'll 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  275 

find  when  you  done  some  more  geography."    Lizarann  felt  awe- 
struck. 

But  it  was  getting  along  towards  six,  and  she  knew  she  ought  to 
be  reporting  herself  to  Teacher.  Perhaps  she  would  have  delayed 
still  later,  if  she  had  not  become  anxious  to  ask  that  lady  point- 
blank  about  this  fascinating  bucolic  scheme.  As  it  was,  she  was 
received  with  some  displeasure — on  her  own  behalf  entirely — and 
decided  to  postpone  investigations.  We,  for  our  part,  have  never 
believed  that  that  extra  half-hour  of  exposure  to  the  evening  air 
made  in  the  long  run  the  slightest  difference. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

THE  EXACT  STORY  OP  CHALLIS's  FIRST  WIFE'S  FIRST  MARRIAGE.  HOW 
HE  AND  MARIANNE  MISSED  THEIR  EXPLANATION.  CHARLOTTE  THE 
DETECTIVE.  CHALLIS's  SECOND  COURTSHIP,  IN  A  NUTSHELL 

IF  there  had  been  no  cause  of  irritation  between  Alfred  Challis 
and  his  wife  about  his  relations  with  Grosvenor  Square,  it  would 
have  mattered  much  less  what  he  kept  back  from  her  of  his  previ- 
ous history.  And  if  he  had  taken  her  fully  into  his  confidence 
about  the  story  of  his  early  marriage  with  her  sister,  his  rela- 
tions with  Grosvenor  Square  would  have  been  much  less  capable  of 
embitterment  and  misinterpretation.  But  his  palpable  conceal- 
ment of  Heaven-knew-what  from  one  who  conceived  she  had  of  all 
others  the  fullest  right  to  know  it,  played  the  part,  in  this  do- 
mestic misunderstanding,  of  poor  Desdemona's  bad  faith  towards 
her  father.  "She  has  deceived  her  father,  and  may  thee,"  said 
Brabantio. 

Could  Marianne  have  known  what  Heaven  knew,  she  would  prob- 
ably have  held  her  husband  blameless,  if  ill-judging;  though  she 
might  have  felt  very  little  leniency  towards  her  sister  for  contract- 
ing a  marriage  unknown  to  her  family.  But  the  ground  was  not  in 
order  for  the  sowing  of  a  crop  of  explanation,  to  be  reaped  as  a 
harvest  of  reconciliation.  It  was  cumbered  with  the  clover  her 
husband  was  supposed  to  be  enjoying  at  the  Acropolis  Club  and 
elsewhere,  and  choked  with  a  creeping  weed  of  Jealousy  unac- 
knowledged. And  as  the  trivial  things  of  life  are*  always  the  ones 
that  play  the  biggest  parts,  so  that  unfortunate  resolution  not  to 
disturb  his  wife,  when  Alfred  Challis  came  home  from  the  Club 
dinner,  had  to  answer  for  quite  ten  times  its  fair  share  of  the 
events  that  followed.  No  doubt  her  silence  was  a  little  vindictive 
— it  would  have  been  so  easy  to  give  a  hint  that  she  was  awake — but 
the  truth  is  it  had  very  little  to  do  with  the  matter.  What  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  it  was  the  fact  that  Mr.  Challis  had  not  been 
enjoying  himself.  Had  it  been  otherwise,  he  would  have  felt 
apologetic;  the  monitor  he  would  not  admit  was  his  conscience 
would  have  prescribed  amends  to  Marianne  for  contriving  to  be  so 
jolly  without  her.  But  she  had  no  guess  that  her  Grosvenor  Square 

276 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  277 

enemy  was  laid  up  with  a  sprained  ankle,  any  more  than  he  had 
that  the  new  cook  had  been  the  means  of  bringing  to  light  a  great 
deal — the  worst  half  in  disjointed  fragments — of  a  story  his  good 
if  mistaken  intentions  had  concealed.  For,  needless  to  say,  the 
actual  story  was  still  very  obscure  to  her;  and  Mrs.  Eldridge, 
though  clever  enough,  was  a  biassed  assistant  in  its  elucidation. 

Lest  it  should  still  be  equally  obscure  to  the  reader,  let  him  note 
its  broad  facts  as  follows:  Edward  Keith  Home  married,  or  went 
through  a  marriage  ceremony,  with  Kate  Verrall,  a  governess  at  the 
house  of  a  coal-merchant  named  Hallock.  Six  weeks  later  he  went 
away  to  New  York,  promising  an  early  return ;  there  was  some  pre- 
tence of  winding  up  a  relative's  affairs.  He  repudiated  his  wife 
shortly  after;  as  she  became  convinced,  and  as  Challis,  his  friend, 
also  believed,  on  legally  good  grounds.  As  we  have  already  said, 
Challis  may  have  met  conviction  half-way,  being  in  love  with  the 
girl  himself.  Of  course,  it  was  he  whose  name  Mrs.  Steptoe  had 
remembered  wrongly  as  Harris.  And,  equally  of  course,  the  mis- 
erable reprobate  of  Athelstan  Taylor's  painful  experience  at  St. 
Brides  was  Home,  who  succeeded  with  what  was  left  of  his  mouth 
in  nearly  articulating  his  true  name  rightly.  "  Kay  Thorne  "  was 
close  to  the  truth,  considering  the  circumstances.  This  story  is 
fortunate  in  having  very  little  to  do  with  this  man;  as  his  young 
wife,  or  victim,  may  also  have  been  in  having  for  her  only  ad- 
viser a  youth  with  a  strong  interest  in  urging  her  passive  accept- 
ance of  her  position.  If  only  half  the  betrayed  girls  in  the  world 
could  have  such  an  adviser  ready  to  hand !  Alas ! — how  seldom  is 
one  found  with  the  courage  to  say,  "  Think  yourself  at  least  in 
luck,  silly  girl,  that  you  are  not  fettered  for  life  to  this  lout  or 
devil!  Hug  to  your  heart  this  one  consolation,  that  though  you 
have  bought  your  experience  of  him,  and  what  he  calls  love,  dear, 
you  have  escaped  scot-free  of  the  blessed  sacrament  of  marriage ! ' 
Too  often  the  poor  thing  finds  herself  alone  in  the  desert — the 
desert  where  correct  expressions  grow — sin,  and  shame,  and  peni- 
tence, and  so  on — and  where  marriage-lines  and  marriage-settle- 
ments make  oases,  from  which  she  is  excluded,  for  the  Grundy 
family  to  breed  in. 

Perhaps  Challis  had  a  concealed  motive  for  his  decision  when, 
at  the  time  he  married  Kate's  sister,  he  made  up  his  mind  to 
treat  the  whole  story  as  a  sealed  book.  But.  even  with  none,  was 
he  wrong,  knowing  that  his  wife  elect  was  quite  convinced  thnt  no 
belonging  of  hers  had  ever  set  foot  outside  her  particular  Grundy 
oasis?  Kemember,  too,  that  he  was  only  pursuing  the  course  he 
would  have  held  it  a  point  of  honour  to  pursue  if  he  had  never  mar- 


278  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ried  Marianne  at  all.  Why  should  his  marriage  with  her  make  it 
incumbent  on  him  to  dig  up  a  story  that  his  wife  had  already 
passed  years  in  ignorance  of,  without  any  living  creature  being 
perceptibly  the  worse?  No  doubt  Mrs.  Eldridge  would  have  said, 
with  a  portentous  gush  of  deep  conviction,  "  She  ought  to  have  been 
told."  But  why? 

At  least,  the  story  shows  that  Challis  himself  had  nothing  dis- 
graceful to  conceal,  and  that  all  his  actions  were  dictated  by  con- 
sideration for  others.  It  is  more  than  likely  that  an  explanation, 
had  the  position  favoured  it,  would  have  ended — if  not  by  placing 
him  in  the  position  of  a  hero — at  least  by  a  discharge  with  a  first- 
class  certificate  from  the  high  court  of  Morality.  But  the  atmos- 
phere teemed  with  suggestions  of  malpractice  undefined,  and  the 
master-hand  of  Mrs.  Eldridge  made  the  most  of  them. 

No  explanation  took  place  between  Challis  and  Marianne  at  the 
only  time  when  it  was  easily  possible — on  the  morning  after  we  saw 
them  last.  Explanations  are  like  strawberries — bottled  up,  they 
spoil.  Now,  whatever  chance  there  would  have  been  of  Challis 
hearing  of  the  photograph  mystery  and  Mrs.  Steptoe's  memories 
was  cancelled  by  the  malign  arrival  on  the  scene  of  Mrs.  Eldridge 
and  her  John,  bound  for  his  daily  toil  at  St.  Martin's-le-Grand. 
So,  you  see,  it  was  early  in  the  morning. 

Charlotte  had  been  so  uneasy  about  dear  Marianne  that  she  felt 
she  must  come  over  to  find  out.  It  was  so  entirely  unexpected. 
She  had  been  laughing  and  joking  the  minute  before.  So  Charlotte 
thought  fit  to  say,  and  Challis,  to  whom  it  was  said  privately,  de- 
'tected  a  flavour  of  an  unasked-for  assurance  that  Marianne  was 
cheerful  in  his  absence.  "It"  had  come  quite  suddenly,  when 
Marianne  went  away  to  speak  to  Martha.  Challis  had  no  means 
of  guessing  what  "  it "  had  been,  except  Mrs.  Eldridge's  note,  and  a 
certain  demeanour  of  his  wife's,  which  no  doubt  had  to  answer 
for  an  expression  of  Master  Bob's,  in  secret  conclave  with  his  sister 
Cat.  According  to  him,  his  mater  was  savage,  if  you  liked,  this 
morning.  Challis  had  gone  to  his  wife's  room  to  ask  about  "  it " 
as  soon  as  he  heard  that  the  servant  had  abated ;  and  had  been  told, 
coldly,  that  nothing  had  been  the  matter  that  Marianne  knew  of. 
TFis  production  of  Mrs.  Eldridge's  note  was  met  by,  "  That's  just 
like  Charlotte  I  n  He  waited  a  few  moments  for  counter-inquiry 
about  himself,  rather  anxious  to  tell  what  a  failure  the  Acropolis 
had  turned  o\it;  but  no  curiosity  was  shown,  and  he  went  back  to 
his  own  room  to  dress,  saying  nothing  further.  Had  he  been  wise, 
he  would  have  sat  on  thp  bod  in  his  pyjamas,  and  said  he  meant  to 
stop  there  until  the  mystery  was  accounted  for. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  279 

Matters  got  definitely  worse  when  Mrs.  Eldridge,  whose  invasion 
occurred  just  at  the  end  of  breakfast,  took  advantage  of  a  chance 
exit  of  Marianne's,  in  connection  with  housekeeping  matters,  to 
follow  her  and  contrive  a  sympathetic  interview  within  hearing  of 
the  two  gentlemen.  Not  that  a  word  was  audible,  but  anyone  with 
the  slightest  knowledge  of  human  nature  would  have  discerned  that 
one  of  the  speakers,  the  tone  of  whose  voice  was  mellow  with  the 
opposite  sexes  of  the  persons  she  was  speaking  of,  was  recognizing 
the  patience  and  forbearance  of  the  other  under  trials,  and  ex- 
horting her  to  renewed  efforts  in  the  same  direction. 

"  What  do  you  suppose  was  the  matter  ? "  Challis  was  filling  his 
pipe,  as  he  asked  this  question  of  Mr.  Eldridge. 

"Mean  to  say  you  don't  know?" 

"  I  certainly  don't.    Nobody  has  told  me." 

"I  ain't  any  help.  Don't  ask  me — that's  all!  Don't  put  it  on 
me  to  say ! "  Mr.  Eldridge,  however,  implies  that  his  attitude  is 
one  of  Discretion,  not  Ignorance.  For  he  closes  one  eye,  an  action 
that  can  bear  no  other  interpretation.  He  also  shakes  his  head  con- 
tinuously and  gently,  as  one  who  would  convey  to  an  interviewer 
the  hopelessness  of  cross-examination. 

"  I  suppose  it  was  nothing  but  an  upset.  The  weather's  trying.'* 
It  had  really  been  unusually  normal.  But  Mr.  Challis  was  talking 
as  gentlemen  do  when  they  are  lighting  a  pipe,  and  thinking  more 
about  whether  that's  enough  than  about  the  topic  in  hand. 

"  Stomach ! "  said  Mr.  Eldridge,  as  nearly  in  a  monosyllable  as 
spelling  permits.  He  repeated  the  word  just  half-a-dozen  times  in 
a  run ;  then  added  this  rider :  "  Say  nervous  system,  when  a  lady. 
Puts  it  better." 

"  Something  of  that  sort ! "  The  pipe  draws,  and  the  smoker 
ought  to  look  happy.  He  doesn't.  But,  then,  the  sympathetic 
murmur,  with  its  unguessed  import,  of  Mrs.  Eldridge  afar,  is 
reaching  his  ears.  Sudden  appreciative  gushes,  and  the  firm  tone 
of  sound  advice,  are  very  unsettling  when  inarticulate.  Cannot  that 
fool  John  be  made  to  throw  a  light  on  the  mystery?  Try  again! 
"  Charlotte  told  you  all  about  it,  John ;  you  know  she  did ! '  The 
Christian  names  give  cordiality.  But  John  is  not  to  be  cajoled. 

"Tellin's  is  tellin's."  says  he;  and  goes  so  far  as  to  place  a  finger 
against  one  side  of  his  nose,  in  token  of  perspicuity.  "  Put  it  at 
stomach!  .  .  .  Got  the  right  time ?" 

"  That  clock's  right." 

"Then  Greenwich  is  fast.  Must  s<v  about  pottin'  off!  Gottin* 
off — gettin'  off — gettin'  off!"  Mr.  Eldridpro's  repetitions  no  doubt 
have  some  bearing  on  his  relations  with  his  fellow-man,  but  it  is  not 


280  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

easy  to  say  what.  They  seem  to  sanction  concurrent  event;  that 
is  the  most  one  can  say.  He  continued  his  last  repetition  even 
after  he  had  taken  his  leave,  saying  he  wouldn't  wait  for  Lotty, 
because  she  was  going  the  other  way,  and  seeming  quite  content 
with  his  speech-work. 

Hence,  when  Lotty  reappeared  hurriedly,  and  was  surprised  at 
his  departure,  having  something  she  must  say  to  him  before  he 
went,  Challis  got  very  little  speech  of  the  lady.  All  her  limited 
time  allowed  her  to  say  was  that  she  had  had  a  long  talk  with  dear 
Marianne,  and  she  was  quite  sure  "  it "  would  be  all  right  now. 
Only  she  was  convinced  it  would  be  so  much  better  to  say  nothing 
to  her — just  to  take  no  notice  of  "  it "  and  let  "  it "  drop.  How- 
ever, rush  she  must,  or  she  would  never  catch  John !  And  rush  she 
did.  And  Challis  grunted,  but  retired  to  his  own  room,  and  was 
soon  absorbed  in  the  Ostrogoths. 

A  stand-up  fight  between  Titus  and  his  wife  at  this  period 
might  have  saved  the  situation.  It  would  not  have  mattered  one 
straw  whether  it  had  turned  on  Grosvenor  Square  or  on  the  un- 
solved mystery  of  the  photograph.  Anything  that  led  to  fiery  out- 
speech  would  have  been  a  precursor  of  reconciliation. 

It  is  difficult  to  tell  anything  with  certainty  about  any  love- 
affairs.  Nobody  ever  knows  anything  at  all  about  them;  even  the 
two  constituents,  if  called  on  to  explain  and  analyze  themselves, 
make  but  a  poor  show.  We  know  pretty  well  what  the  Poet  is  good 
for  at  a  pinch.  And  as  for  the  Man  of  the  World  and  the  Man 
in  the  Street — well ! — all  we  can  say  is,  give  us  the  Woman  of  the 
World  or  the  Woman  in  the  Street;  preferably  the  latter.  But  the 
duty  of  the  story,  in  reference  to  the  psychology  of  Challis's  two 
marriages,  is  to  tell  what  has  come  to  light,  or  seems  most  probable 
— what  it  thinks  or  believes,  not  knows,  about  the  depths  of  an  un- 
fathomable ocean. 

Challis,  then,  being  a  young  man  irreligiously  brought  up — 
that  is  to  say,  made  to  understand  that  he  was  responsible  for  his 
behaviour,  and  that  no  attempt  to  shift  his  sins  off  on  other  shoul- 
ders would  be  held  fair  play — found  himself  at  five-and-twenty  in 
a  position  that  would  have  been  a  sore  trial  to  the  strongest  forti- 
tude. He  was,  if  not  actually  left  in  charge  of  a  friend's  recently 
married  wife,  at  any  rate  in  her  close  confidence;  and,  after  her 
return  to  a  home  and  friends  from  whom  her  marriage  was  a  secret, 
the  sole  depository  of  that  secret.  He  might  never  have  fallen  in 
love  with  Kate  had  they  met  on  fair  ground.  But  a  youth  un- 
familiar with  girl-kind  that  is  not  of  his  own  belongings — sisters, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  281 

to  wit,  and  cousins  earmarked  as  sisters — is  always  in  danger  if 
even  a  moderately  pretty  or  attractive  outsider  takes  him  into  her 
confidence.  Challis's  danger  was  all  the  greater  owing  to  his 
terror  of  being  treacherous  to  his  friend.  Perhaps,  if  the  avowal 
of  his  passion  had  been  legitimately  possible,  he  might  never  have 
suspected  himself  of  any  passion  to  avow.  But  when  you  believe 
your  conscience  will  brand  you  as  a  traitor  to  all  eternity  if  you 
pursue  a  particular  course,  you  naturally  want  to  pursue  it. 

So  it  was  a  great  relief  to  him  when  a  letter,  shown  to  him  alone 
by  the  terrified  girl,  disclosed  the  atrocious  deception  that  had  been 
practised  on  her,  and  the  miserable  position  in  which  she  was 
placed.  No  wonder  the  avowal  came.  Our  own  belief  is  that  it 
would  have  come,  exactly  the  same,  to  a  girl  of  almost  any  per- 
sonality. Nothing  could  have  averted  it,  short  of  a  hare-lip,  an 
isolated  projecting  tusk,  or — suppose  we  say — onions.  And  this 
girl  had  pretty  lips,  and  the  interview  occurred  after  tea. 

Information  is  scanty  about  what  followed.  But  no  serious  in- 
quiry can  have  been  made  into  the  truth  of  Mr.  Home's  accusation 
against  himself.  The  exact  nature  of  it — the  particular  illegality 
he  appealed  to  in  support  of  his  case — does  not  come  to  light. 
There  really  was  no  one  to  inquire,  except  Challis,  unless  the  whole 
story  had  come  out.  It  did  not.  A  twelvemonth  later  Kate  ex- 
changed the  name  of  Verrall — whether  rightly  or  wrongly  borne — 
for  that  of  Challis,  and  two  years  later  Master  Bob  was  born,  and 
his  poor  little  mother  had  died  of  him.  He  showed  no  compunc- 
tion, but  kicked  and  made  a  horrible  noise. 

His  father  was  only  reasonably  overwhelmed  by  his  loss.  It 
may  be  that,  like  many  another  inexperienced  youth,  he  had  not 
reckoned  with  the  difficulties  this  world's  Bobs  and  their  like  are 
apt  to  inflict  on  their  family  before  they  are  formally  enrolled  in  it, 
especially  when  the  mothers  they  select  have  nervous  tempera- 
ments. Challis  felt,  when  he  was  left  alone  with  the  baby,  that  he 
had  had  a  fierce  tussle  with  Fate,  and  had  come  out  of  it  severely 
punished.  Probably,  if  his  wife  had  survived,  and  Bob  had  lived 
to  be  a  year  old,  without  alarms  about  another  brother  or  sister, 
his  father  would  have  been  much  less  easily  reconciled  to  his 
widowerhood.  He  would  then  have  had  a  short  draught  of  the 
nectar  of  life  at  its  best;  that  is,  if — as  we  suppose — a  tempestuous 
excitability,  which  appealed  two  or  three  months  after  marriage. 
was  entirely  due  to  Master  Bob.  Mental  unsoundness  seems  to 
have  been  denied ;  but,  then,  surely  someone  must  have  affirmed  it  ? 

As  it  was.  Bob  did  a  good  deal — the  best  he  could — to  make  up 
for  the  mischief  he  had  done.  He  was  a  satisfaction  to  his  father ; 


282  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

and,  being  taken  in  hand  by  his  Aunt  Marianne,  then  a  girl  of 
eighteen,  and  in  a  sense  adopted  by  her,  became  a  strong  connecting 
link  between  the  two,  and  was  really  the  agency  that  brought  about 
Challis's  second  marriage  four  or  five  years  later.  It  would  have 
happened  sooner,  no  doubt,  but  for  the  anomalous  and  grotesque 
condition  of  English  Law,  which,  till  a  year  or  so  since,  made 
certain  marriages  diversely  legal  in  different  portions  of  the  British 
Empire.  The  Angels  might  weep,  but  if  they  cried  their  eyes 
out  it  would  still  remain  impossible  for  a  man  to  wed  with  his 
deceased  wife's  sister  on  certain  square  yards  of  it.  He  had  to  be 
domiciled  in  a  special  portion  of  the  Empire  on  which  the  sun 
never  sets  to  do  that,  and  yet  live  ungrundied.  Marianne  was  slow 
to  give  in  on  the  point.  She  had,  in  common  with  many  of  her 
countrywomen,  a  religious  conviction — a  belief  in  the  plenary  in- 
spiration of  any  book  in  a  religious  binding — you  know  the  sort. 
She  may  have  had  others,  but  the  qualifications  of  her  intelligence 
were  not  such  as  to  enable  bystanders  to  discover  their  exact  na- 
ture. Alfred  Challis  certainly  never  did  so.  And  this  religioiis 
conviction  did  not  give  way  until  her  brother-in-law  deliberately 
wrote  formal  proposals  to  a  Miss  Bax,  with  elbows,  whom  she 
hated;  to  a  fascinating  young  Jewish  widow,  who  had  lawlessly 
said  she  would  just  as  soon  marry  a  Gentile  as  a  Jew;  and  to  the 
daughter  of  a  Unitarian  minister.  He  took  the  three  letters  to  her, 
and  said,  "  Now,  Polly  Anne,  which  is  it  to  be  ?  You  may  burn 
two  of  these;  the  other  one  I  post."  Polly  Anne  promptly  de- 
stroyed the  two  last;  her  brother-in-law  was  blasphemous  and  im- 
pious enough  already  without  that,  she  said.  But  Emma  Bax  I — 
no,  when  she  came  to  think  of  it,  it  was  impossible!  However, 
Challis  directed  the  letter  and,  as  it  were,  invested  a  postage- 
stamp  in  intimidation;  so  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  to  throw 
her  arms  around  his  neck  and  surrender  at  discretion.  Anything 
rather  than  Emma  Bax!  He  kissed  her  tears  away  and  said: 
"You  know,  Polly  Anne,  after  all,  you're  only  poor 'Kate's  half- 
sister,  when  all's  said  and  done ! "  This  she  found  very  con- 
solatory. 

It  was  a  pity,  at  this  juncture,  that  the  girl's  mother  was  a  fool. 
Had  she  been  a  reasonably  good  giiardian  for  her  daughter,  she 
would  at  least  have  insisted  on  the  nuptials  being  celebrated  in  a 
land  where  the  marriage  would  have  been  held  lawful.  But  she  con- 
tented herself  with  condemning  the  union  in  the  abstract,  and 
flinging  Holy  Writ — also  in  the  abstract — at  its  perpetrators.  The 
Bench  of  Bishops  would  have  done  the  same,  no  doubt;  but  that 
Bench  would  have  forbidden  the  banns,  to  a  certainty.  As  she  re- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  283 

mained  silent,  and  no  outsider  could  be  expected  to  screw  himself 
up  to  prohibition-point  in  the  case  of  a  half-sister,  the  pair  were 
wedded  by  a  priest  who  knew  nothing  of  them  beyond  their  bare 
names,  and  never  really  became  man  and  wife,  as  they  would  have 
done  if  they  had  been  married  sixty-odd  years  before;  unless,  in- 
deed, some  busybody  had  obtained  a  decree  annulling  the  marriage 
— as  the  Law,  with  a  keen  sense  of  fun,  directed  in  the  days  of  our 
great-grandfathers. 

The  notable  point  in  the  psychology  of  these  two  marriages  surely 
is  that  in  neither  case  was  the  bride  the  free  selection  of  the  bride- 
groom, except  in  the  sense  that  he  was  absolutely  free  to  take  or 
leave  either.  He  never,  strictly  speaking,  fell  in  love  at  all.  He 
found  himself  in  a  well,  and  love  trickled  in.  But  even  in  this 
metaphor  he  never  was  over  head  and  ears.  He  never  wished  to  be 
a  glove  on  any  hand,  to  press  any  cheek.  To  call  him  passionately 
in  love  with  either  of  the  two  sisters  would  have  been  just  aa 
absurd  as  to  say  that  Romeo  "  got  very  fond "  of  Rosaline  and 
Juliet.  Exchange  the  phrases,  and  each  fits  its  place.  Challis 
got  very  fond  of  both  his  wives,  being  an  affectionate  sort  of  chap. 
But  he  remained  a  stranger  to  the  divine  intoxication  which  is 
known  in  its  fulness  only  to  Romeo  and  his  like,  and  which  some 
men  never  know  at  all. 

Short  of  this  last  sort  may  often  be  found  men  who  have  escaped 
Romeo's  experience  early  in  life,  yet  whom  some  cunning  context 
of  circumstance  may  just  upset,  and  convert  for  the  moment  into 
idiots  as  infatuated  as  the  young  Montague  and  Capulet  we  have 
cried  over  so  many  a  time.  For  our  own  part,  we  count  none  quite 
safe  from  what  is  really  an  ennobling  phase  of  sheer  madness;  ex- 
cept it  be,  for  instance,  a  Charles  the  Second,  a  Rochester,  a  Ti- 
berius, or  a  Joe  Smith.  Id  genus  omne  is  safe  enough. 


CHAPTER 

HOW  CHALLIS  CALLED  ON  MISS  ARKROYD  IN  GROSVENOR  SQUARE.  A 
SPRAINED  ANKLE.  ON  THE  EDGE  OF  A  PRECIPICE.  KING  SOLOMON 
AND  HIS  DJINN  BOTTLE 

MR.  ELPHINSTONE,  responsible  for  No.  101,  Grosvenor  Square, 
and  the  morals  and  dignity  of  the  family  that  dwelt  in  it,  was  not 
without  uneasiness  about  the  literary  and  artistic  circles  that  his 
two  young  ladies  had  elected  to  move  in.  This  description  is  super- 
ficial; it  judges  from  externals.  Say  that  Mr.  Elphinstone's  ap- 
pearance conveyed  that  he,  like  Atlas,  had  the  whole  house  on  his 
shoulders — was  practically  answerable  for  the  honourable  repute  of 
all  his  subordinates,  and  morally  for  that  of  his  superiors.  That 
was  the  construction  Alfred  Challis  felt  obliged  to  put  on  such 
flawless  shaving;  such  a  weighty  deference  to  the  slightest 
personalities — his  own,  for  instance — on  production  of  adequate 
credentials;  such  a  hypnotic  suggestion  of  having  foregone  an 
episcopate  elsewhere  to  take  service  with  a  beloved  family  whose 
interests  he  had  at  heart.  It  was  a  construction  not  free  from  the 
derision  Mr.  Challis  was  in  the  habit  of  meting  out  to  dignitaries 
of  all  sorts.  In  this  case  he  may  not  have  been  free  from  personal 
feeling;  for  he  must  have  been  aware  that  Elphinstone  regarded 
him  as  an  interloper — one  who  outraged  the  sacred  traditions  of  the 
household,  calling  at  unearthly  hours  in  a  soft  felt  hat,  and  smok- 
ing on  the  doorstep  until  compelled  to  throw  away  too  much  cigar 
by  hearing  that  the  family  was  at  home. 

This  is  substantially  what  was  happening  about  two  hours  after 
Mr.  Eldridge  had  declined  to  shed  any  light  on  anything  at  all, 
and  his  wife  had  departed  enjoining  silence  about  Heaven-knows- 
what.  Challis,  desceuvre  by  the  mystification,  had  found  himself 
unable  to  invent  any  single  thing  a  Scythian  mercenary  would 
have  been  likely  to  say  in  English  blank  verse,  and  an  approach 
towards  Marianne  of  a  conciliatory  sort  was  met  by,  "  I  must  see 
Steptoe  now  about  the  dinner."  Unfortunately,  this  speech  was 
absolutely  passionless ;  if  it  had  only  been  tempersome,  there  might 
have  been  a  row.  And  a  row — as  the  Press  delights  to  phrase  it — 
might  have  spelt  salvation.  But  Challis  could  see  in  it  nothing 

284 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  285 

that  justified  more  than  a  languid  "  All  right !  "  on  his  part.  And 
he  had  departed  to  the  banks  of  the  Danube  again,  with  no  better 
success  than  before. 

Presently  his  wife  knocked  at  his  door  in  an  excluded,  ostracised 
sort  of  way,  and  he  got  up  to  open  it.  She  was  dressed  for  going 
out.  "I  won't  disturb  you,"  she  said.  "Don't  come  out.  I  only 
wanted  to  say  that  if  the  man  comes  about  the  gas  you  had  better 
see  him,  because  he  won't  believe  Steptoe,  and  the  meter  is  cer- 
tainly out  of  order.  That's  all." 

It  was  one  of  those  queer  little  turning-points  of  existence. 
Challis  was  not  ready  with  any  reply  that  would  have  caused  a 
moment's  delay  and  saved  the  situation.  Before  he  could  manage 
more  than  general  assent,  Marianne  was  gone,  too  far  for  anything 
short  of  demonstrative  recall.  He  did  not  see  his  way  to  this,  and 
the  chance  was  lost. 

He  was  unable  to  work,  and  wanted  to  go  out.  But  he  had 
been,  as  it  were,  put  in  bond  on  account  of  the  gas-man,  who 
wouldn't  believe.  He  failed  to  console  himself  by  an  accusation 
of  Sadduceeism  against  that  functionary,  and  repeated  Blake — 

"  The  bat  that  flits  at  close  of  eve 
Comes  from  the  brain  that  won't  believe  " 

— without  benefit  to  his  ill-temper.  Then  he  impatiently  wrote 
a  note  about  the  meter  to  leave  with  Steptoe,  to  whom  he  said 
with  immovable  gravity:  "Is  it  a  Sapphic  or  an  Alcaic  meter,  do 
you  know?"  Aunt  Stingy's  reply,  without  a  shadow  of  suspicion 
in  her  voice,  "  I  could  not  say,  myself,  sir,  but  The  Man  would  be 
sure  to  know,"  put  him  in  a  much  better  humour.  He  actually 
chuckled  as  soon  as  he  was  sure  the  good  woman  was  out  of  hearing. 

He  wanted  a  book  from  the  London  Library,  and  could  get  it 
easily  and  come  back  to  lunch.  He  really  did  not  admit  to  himself, 
when  he  left  home,  that  he  had  any  good  grounds  for  suspecting 
that  he  meant  to  call  in  Grosvenor  Square  to  inquire  about  that 
sprained  ankle.  He  took  pains  to  disbelieve  in  any  such  intention 
till  he  had  got  the  volume  he  was  in  want  of  from  the  Library, 
and  then  it  occurred  to  him  that  it  would  be  unfeeling  not  to  in- 
quire after  the  victim  of  an  accident  which  might  prove  serious, 
after  all.  His  image  of  the  injury  done  became  very  bad  as  he  told 
his  cabman  to  drive  to  101,  Grosvenor  Square.  Was  he  aware 
that  he  welcomed  this  solicitude  about  the  sprained  ankle  because 
it  disguised,  for  the  comfort  of  his  conscience,  his  disposition  to 
call  upon  its  owner? 

The  only  palliative  to  the  disgust  of  that  doorstep  in  Grosveuor 


286  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Square — to  which  it  is  time  to  return — was  that  this  time  Mr. 
Challis  was  not  actually  smoking  on  its  brink;  as,  when  his  cab 
pulled  up,  he  was  descried,  before  he  had  time  to  descend,  by  Mr. 
Elphinstone  himself,  who  had  come  out  tentatively  into  the  Uni- 
verse to  look  round  at  it,  with  a  sense  upon  him  of  possible  sudden 
retractation  through  the  open  door,  like  a  hermit-crab.  A  Piccadilly 
hansom,  equal  to  bespoke  for  Royalty,  had  in  this  case  levelled  its 
occupant  up.  Even  so  a  growler  of  the  deepest  dye,  lurching, 
springless,  effluvial,  knacker-destined  as  to  its  horse,  drags  down  the 
noblest  blood  that  dares  to  ride  in  it — yes !  even  a  Duke's ;  but  who 
can  cite  a  case  in  point  ?  Only,  when  Mr.  Elphinstone  crossed  the 
pavement,  he  did  it  to  confer  with  the  contents  of  the  cab,  as  such ; 
not  with  Mr.  Alfred  Challis,  thank  you ! 

He  was  reassuring  about  the  ankle ;  a  slight  strain  that  with  care 
— his  own  and  Sir  Rhyscombe  Edison's — would  disappear  in  a  day 
or  two.  Oh  no ! — in  answer  to  inquiry — Miss  Arkroyd  had  not  been 
compelled  to  keep  her  bed;  a  phrase  that  entered  a  respectful  pro- 
test against  "  stop  in  bed,"  the  coarse,  familiar  expression  Mr. 
Challis  had  made  use  of.  But  he  was,  after  all,  a  married  man 
with  a  family,  so  it  might  be  overlooked,  this  once.  He  went  on  to 
say  that  Miss  Arkroyd,  he  believed,  was  up,  though  nursing  the 
injured  limb  on  a  sofa.  He  arrived,  after  responsible  doubts,  ai 
the  conclusion  that  he  might  send  Mr.  Challis's  card  up,  in  case  of 
any  message.  Delicacy  dictating  a  female  emissary,  Samuel  was 
despatched  with  it  to  Miss  Arkroyd's  maid ;  who  presently,  being  an 
unpolished  sample  from  the  dairy  at  Royd,  came  down  and  said 
briefly  that  Mr.  Challis  was  to  come  up.  Mr.  Elphinstone's  ex- 
pression was  well-restrained  protest. 

But  it  may  not  have  been  so  much  the  little  dairy-maiden's 
bluntness  that  provoked  it,  as  an  indescribably  small  shade  of  de- 
meanour of  Mr.  Challis's.  As  the  girl  came  along  the  passage,  and 
before  she  spoke,  Challis  threw  his  cigar  away,  or  the  two-thirds 
that  was  left  of  it.  Such  a  little  matter!  But  unless  he  had 
known  what  she  was  going  to  say,  he  surely  would  have  kept  it  till 
he  did,  to  finish  at  leisure.  How  came  he  to  be  so  positive  ? 

Anyhow,  there  it  was ! — the  cigar — not  half  smoked,  on  the  pave- 
ment when  the  house  door  closed.  And  the  cabman's  eye  rested 
on  it.  And  he  spoke  thus  to  a  butcher's  boy,  who  appeared  from 
an  area :  "  Wipe  your  fingers  on  your  apron,  young  dripping,  and 
just  hand  me  up  that  cigar,  and  I'll  see  if  I'll  smoke  it.  I  ain't 
proud.  Only  don't  you  discharge  off  any  of  your  natural  grease 
upon  it  1 " 

To  be  addressed,  even  in  disparaging  terms,  by  such  a  hansom, 


287 

was  flattering  to  this  butcher-boy's  vanity,  and  he  did  not  resent 
it.  "  Licked,  but  not  busted,  that  I  can  see ! "  was  his  comment 
as  he  handed  the  cigar  up  to  the  cabman,  who  went  on  with  it,  con- 
tentedly. 

It  is  two  months  of  the  story  since  it  saw,  or  rather  heard  of, 
Miss  Arkroyd  and  Mr.  Challis  driving  up  to  this  door  after  mid- 
night in  another  hansom.  All  that  it  said,  or  implied,  at  that  time 
amounted  to  little  more  than  that  a  not  very  strait-laced  lady  and 
gentleman  had  been  rather  free  and  easy  over  some  theatrical 
schemes  interesting  to  both,  and  that  the  lady's  sister,  being  less 
free  or  less  easy,  had  intimated  that  the  conduct  of  the  two  might 
be  laced  a  little  more  straitly,  with  advantage.  It  is  over  six 
months  of  the  story  since  they  discussed  "  The  Spendthrift's  Leg- 
acy "  and  "  Ziz  "  in  the  garden  at  Royd.  If  Charlotte  Eldridge,  as 
an  authority,  had  been  asked,  "  On  which  of  these  two  occasions, 
madam,  should  you  suppose  the  chances  were  best  of  this  gentleman 
and  lady  supplying  you  with  a  story  made  to  your  hand,  akin  to 
the  one  Robert  Browning  never  went  on  with?"  what  would  her 
answer  have  been  ? 

Our  own  impression  is  that  at  this  present  date  of  writing,  when 
Challis,  smelling  rather  strongly  of  tobacco,  is  following  the  little 
ex-dairymaid  up  the  second  flight  of  stairs  to  what  is  known  as 
the  young  ladies'  sitting-room — at  this  very  moment,  with  the  cab- 
man making  the  most  of  his  inherited  Havana,  and  Judith  forming 
to  receive  visitors,  the  position  would  have  been  much  less  likely  to 
supply  copy  for  Mrs.  Eldridge  than  the  previous  one,  but  for  one 
thing.  Challis's  relations  with  Marianne  were,  at  the  moment — 
say — of  the  parroquets,  intact.  What  were  they  now  ?  .  .  . 

They  were  something,  or  Challis's  last  unspoken  speech  to  him- 
self on  the  stairs  would  not  have  been,  "  At  any  rate,  it  isn't  my 
fault !  "  It  needed  the  atmosphere  of  Judith — amused,  if  irritated, 
at  her  absurdity  in  getting  a  sprained  ankle — to  enable  him  to 
shake  free — though  always  under  protest — of  the  Hermitage. 

"Wasn't  it  ridiculous  of  me!  .  .  .  No! — don't  sit  there;  I 
can't  see  you.  .  .  .  Wasn't  it  ridiculous  of  me  to  do  this — 
just  now  of  all  times  in  the  year?  " 

"  I  thought  you  were  a  passive  agent.  I  mean  I  didn't  know  that 
you  did  do  anything." 

"No  more  I  did!  No  more  than  one  does.  You  know  what  I 
mean  ? " 

"  Couldn't  be  better  expressed !  Like  when  one  chokes  and 
thinks  one  could  have  helped  it,  and  what  a  fool  one  is !  But  b*>w 
did  it  happen  ?  " 


288  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Perfectly  simple !  I  was  getting  down  out  of  the  carriage,  and 
forgot  to  think  about  my  feet.  Fenton  Arkroyd  was  passing, 
and  if  he's  not  taken  notice  of  he's  sensitive,  because  he  married  a 
laundress,  or  something.  So  I  forgot  to  think  about  my  feet.  It 
might  have  been  so  easily  avoided — with  a  little  common-sense." 

"  So  might  so  many  things."  Challis  isn't  the  least  clear  how  the 
common-sense  would  act  in  the  cases  he  is  talking  at — the  plagues 
that  beset  his  own  path.  But  what  a  capital  thing  to  say ! — on  gen- 
eral grounds,  of  course,  with  a  little  esoteric  meaning  all  to  oneself. 

Judith,  perhaps,  thinks  it  too  early  in  the  morning  for  ethics, 
as  she  changes  the  conversation.  "  How  did  you  like  my  little 
maid  ? "  she  says,  keeping  her  eyes  closed ;  which  seems  absurd 
after  stipulating  for  visibility  on  Challis's  part.  But  it  all  belongs 
to  a  certain  imperious  humour  in  the  grain  of  her  character.  And 
rights  of  translation  are  reserved.  She  can  open  them  if  she 
pleases. 

"  She's  new,  isn't  she?   Jolly  little  party!  "    Thus  Challis. 

"  You're  not  warm  enough !     Didn't  you  want  to  kiss  her  ? " 

"  Yes,  badly — when  she  gave  your  message — half-way  up.  .    .    ." 

Judith  opened  her  eyes.  You  can't  laugh  with  your  eyes  shut; 
you  snigger.  "  She  really  gave  it  ?  Do  tell  me  exactly !  What  did 
she  say  ? "  she  asks  delightedly,  keeping  her  eyes  open  to  hear  the 
answer. 

"  She  turned  round  on  the  landing,  and  became  for  the  moment 
a  mere  mass  of  blooming  conscience.  ..." 

"  Is  that — excuse  me ! — to  be  taken  as  language,  or  how  ?  " 

"No,  no! — literally  .  .  .  Blown  flowers  of  intense  truthful- 
ness, and  buds  on  the  burst.  .  .  .  Well ! — she  said,  as  near  as  I 
remember :  '  Miss  Arkroyd  said  if  Mr.  Challis  didn't  smell  too 
strong  of  smoke,  only  Mr.  Elphinstone  wasn't  to  hear.'  And  then 
she  got  away  up  the  second  flight  with  some  alacrity.  I  thought 
she  was  afraid  I  might  propose  investigation,  and  Elphinstone  was 
still  in  the  neighbourhood." 

Judith  is  intensely  amused.  "  I  shall  have  to  give  that  child  one 
of  Sibyl's  bead  necklaces.  Turquoise.  It  goes  with  her  eyes  ex- 
actly— they  have  just  the  violet  tinge."  She  closed  her  own  again 
on  the  slight  subject,  but  it  has  suggested  a  weightier  one. 
"  Couldn't  you  give  Estrild  a  little  Visigoth  ingenue — I  mean 
Ostrogoth — to  wait  upon  her  ? " 

"What! — and  train  the  little  Rankshire  beauty  to  the  part? 
Think  of  her  parents — the  stage! — merciful  Heaven!  ..."  But 
Challis  stops  suddenly,  discomposed  by  a  discomposure  in  his 
hearer. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  289 

"  Never  mind,"  says  she,  shaking  it  off.  "  You  didn't  mean  it. 
You're  forgiven!  Go  on." 

"  I  naturally  didn't  think  of  it  from  that  point  of  view.  The 
cases  are  so  entirely  different." 

"  Never  mind ! "  Judith  repeats  her  words  with  more  em- 
phasis. "  You  are  forgiven.  Now  go  on  about  the  Ostrogoths." 

"  I  could  put  the  little  beauty  in ;  she  would  be  very  useful  as  a 
set-off  to  Estrild.  Besides,  I  want  to  get  rid  of  Isarnes  the  Cappa- 
docian,  and  she  would  work  in  .  .  ." 

Judith  interrupts  him,  calling  to  the  little  attendant,  who  comes 
in  answer  from  somewhere  within  hearing.  "  Child !  "  she  says — 
"  bring  me  that  hand-mirror  off  my  dressing-table,"  and  when  it 
comes,  continues,  interrupting  a  recommencement  of  the  Cappa- 
docian,  "  That's  right ! — give  it  me.  Now  put  your  face  over  my 
shoulder  and  look  in." 

The  order  is  complied  with,  but  an  inexplicable  apology  fol- 
lows: "Please,  miss,  I  know.  Because  I  looked.  And  I've  tried 
monkey-soap,  and  it  won't  wash  out."  The  seriousness  of  the 
young  voice  is  heart-rending.  Judith  bursts  out  laughing,  but  con- 
soles :  "  It  wasn't  that,  child !  But  I  like  you  to  be  a  funny  little 
goose,  so  don't  stop !  Now  take  away  the  glass,  and  let  the 
monkey-soap  alone,  for  Heaven's  sake!  .  .  .  You  got  a  good 
view,  Mr.  Dramatist  ?  .  .  .  Well ! — you  saw  what  I  mean.  Now, 
tell  me  what  you  were  saying  about  the  Cappadocian." 

"  Why,  you  see,  he  ought  to  make  a  showy  end,  after  dyeing  his 
hands  in  the  blood  of  so  many  inoffensive  persons,  and  killing  a 
Sarmatian  bison  with  a  single  blow  in  the  arena.  He  might  be  just 
giving  a  hideous  laugh  of  triumph,  and  his  innocent  victim  might 
be  struggling  vainly  in  the  grasp  of  a  giant — it  would  be  Jack 
Potter;  you  know  what  a  biceps  he  has — and  a  sudden  arrow 
would  be  shot  from  across  the  Danube  and  pierce  his  brain  through 
the  eye.  ..." 

"  Of  course — shot  by  What's-his-name  ? — the  man  that  wouldn't 
embrace  Christianity,  but  does  heroic  deeds.  You  know,  Challis, 
you'll  have  to  make  him  embrace  Christianity.  What  is  the  use  of 
being  unpopular  ? " 

"  Of  course  he  embraces  Christianity  in  the  end.  The  high- 
priest  or  bishop  elevates  a  crucifix.  I've  been  trying  to  think  of  a 
good  name  for  him.  Ingomar  or  Anthrax.  ..." 

"  That  won't  do.  It's  what  the  sheep  die  of.  How  would  Zero 
do?"  \ 

"  Something  between  Zeno  and  Nero.  Very  good  name,  only  the 
thermometer's  been  beforehand  with  us.  .  .  ."  And  so  the  con- 


290  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

versation  ran  on  for  a  little,  throwing  an  interesting  light  on  the 
human  drama  in  its  connection  with  Gibbon.  But  it  was  a  con- 
versation that  murmured  continually :  "  You  know  you  did  not  al- 
low me  to  go  my  own  way  because  you  thought  I  was  going  to  be 
disagreeable.  Finish  me  piecemeal  as  I  arise,  or  take  the  conse- 
quence— misgiving  on  either  part  about  what  the  other  did  or  didn't 
think."  Judith,  who,  after  all,  was  the  one  responsible  for  the  dis- 
continuity, gave  in  to  these  murmurs  first,  and  harked  back. 

"  I  know  you  think,  Challis,  that  I  am  keeping  the  madre  and 
papa  in  the  dark  about  what  I  mean  to  do.  But  I'm  not,  because 
Sibyl  knows,  and  they  can  know  perfectly  well  if  they  like;  it's 
only  that  they  don't  choose  to  know.  Besides,  what  on  earth  is  the 
use  of  making  scenes,  when  I've  made  up  my  mind?  I'll  confess 
when  the  time  comes." 

The  levity  or  laxity  of  Challis's  voice  is  gone  from  it  in  his 
reply,  scarcely  a  sequel  to  the  words  just  spoken :  u  When  I  said  that 
about  your  little  maid,  I  had  no  thought  that  it  could  possibly  ap- 
ply in  your  case.  The  child,  remember,  is  under  the  legal  control 
of  parents.  How  old  is  she? — sixteen?  ..." 

"  Yes,  perhaps — not  more,  certainly.     You  mean  that  I'm  .   .    ." 

"  Over  twenty-one.  I  don't  say  you  would  assert  a  legal  inde- 
pendence against  the  wishes  of  your  family.  But  it  separates  the 
two  cases.  I  wouldn't  have  any  hand  in  getting  a  very  young  girl 
on  the  stage  in  any  case.  And  I  think  I  should  avail  myself  of 
the  existing  legal  .  .  .  well ! — call  it  pretext,  if  you  will  .  ...  to 
excuse  myself  from  doing  so." 

"  That's  just  like  you,  Challis !  You  really  are  a  disciple  of 
Mr.  Brownfigg's  Groschenbauer — what's  his  name?  You  deride 
every  existing  usage,  merely  because  it  exists,  and  then  you  make 
use  of  it  for  your  own  purposes!  You're  just  the  same  about  the 
parsons,  and  all  religion !  You  tolerate  it,  or  pose  as  tolerating  it, 
because  you  dislike  wickedness  on  the  whole,  and  can't  see  your 
way  to  a  substitute — not  even  to  a  Metaphysical  Check." 

Challis's  laugh  left  his  face  twinkling  with  paradoxical  inten- 
tion. "I  believe  I  am  the  only  known  example,"  said  he  delib- 
erately, "  of  a  person  apparently  of  sound  mind  who  has  never 
once  succeeded  in  justifying  a  single  position  he  has  taken 
up.  .  .  ." 

"  Don't  talk  like  Felixthorpe !  At  any  rate,  you  can  justify  the 
position  you  have  taken  up  that  I'm  more  than  twenty-one." 

"  Because  you  told  me !  " 

"Yes — the  day  after  my  birthday.  I  was  twenty-six  the  day 
you  came  to  Royd.  I  remember  telling  you  the  day  we  went  to  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  291 

Rectory.  Six  months  ago!  Oh  dear! — how  the  time  does  run 
away ! " 

In  obedience  to  a  mysterious  law,  which  dictates  that  no  speech 
of  any  good-looking  woman  to  any  passable  man  shall  mean  to  him 
nothing  beyond  its  obvious  meaning,  this  little  reminiscence  of 
Judith  assumed  an  identity.  It  reminded  Challis  of  the  existence 
of  that  soul-brush,  which  had  become — it  is  useless  to  deny  it — so 
much  a  part  of  his  relation  with  Judith  that  he  had  ceased  to  hear 
the  machinery.  He  denied  it,  mind  you ! — denied  it  systematically. 
Yet  he  was  indignant  with  anything  that  reminded  him  that  it  was 
time  to  deny  it.  Plague  take  this  necessity  for  walking  guardedly ! 
How  acceptable  it  would  have  been  to  be  able  to  say,  "  How  we  en- 
joyed that  walk  back  through  the  sunset !  "  Another  type  of  man — 
the  type  that  says,  "Let  Charlotte  Eldridge  do  her  worst,  and  be 
blowed !  " — would  have  had  no  scruples  on  the  subject.  But  Chal- 
lis was  a  nervous  person,  and  his  Self  was  perplexing  him — very 
especially  now,  with  poor,  dear,  stupid  Polly  Anne  making  life  a 
weariness,  with  her  tempers  and  her  fancies. 

Was  Judith  Arkroyd  aware,  all  the  time,  that  this  man's  bark 
was  in  troubled  waters,  while  she  was  floating  in  a  secure  haven 
— secure,  at  least,  for  now  ?  Did  she  ask  herself  any  questions  ? 

Or  was  Challis  just  a  shade  priggish  to  show  a  stony  front  to  such 
a  very  meek  little  reminiscence  ?  His  actual  reply  was :  "  I  thought 
it  was  a  good  deal  more,  since  my  visit  to  Royd,  I  mean." 

"  I  hope  you'll  pay  us  another  visit"  Judith  thought  to  her- 
self that  two  could  play  that  game.  And  Challis  immediately  felt 
chilly,  illogically;  rather  as  though  the  soul-brush  had  slacked  off. 
He  would  have  to  say  something  serious  now,  to  merge  this  little 
fault  in  the  stratification  of  their  conversation. 

"  I  hope  to,  certainly.  Well ! — what  were  we  saying  ?  .  .  .  Oh 
yes ! — you  told  me  your  age,  you  know.  But  even  then  I  had  mis- 
givings about  Aminta  Torrington.  I  can't  say  I  wasn't  glad  when 
old  Magnus  put  his  foot  down.  It's  an  odious  part,  and  it  wouldn't 
have  suited  you.  Thyrza  Schreckenbaum  won't  look  so  well  on  the 
stage,  but  it's  more  her  part  than  yours." 

"I  should  have  thought  Estrild  was  wicked  enough  for  any- 
thing." 

"  So  she  is.  But  it's  mediaeval — good,  honest,  outrageous 
atrocity.  It's  almost  Scriptural.  Suppose,  now,  you  had  to 
apologize  to  the  papa  of  your  little  tire-maiden  for  putting  her  on 
the  stage,  think  how  much  easier  it  would  be  if  she  was  only  to 
play  Messalina  or  Lucrezia  Borgia  than  if  it  was  Frou-frou,  for 
instance ! " 


292  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  That  little  sugar-plum — just  fancy!  No,  I  shouldn't  like  her  to 
play  Frou-frou  at  all.  The  atmosphere  is  purer  in  the  other  cases. 
How  ridiculous  one  is!  But  point  your  moral,  Mr.  Dramatist." 

"  Let  me  see ! — what  are  we  talking  about  ?  "  For  Challis  had 
forgotten.  "  I  believe  I'm  on  a  line  of  self -justification.  Didn't  I 
tell  you  I  never  succeeded?  I  believe  I'm  creeping  round  to  a 
sneaking  apology  for  having  offered  you  Aminta  Torrington  at  all. 
I  wouldn't  have  written  the  part  for  you — even  then.  But  there  it 
was,  and  you  asked  for  the  chance,  and  it  was  the  only  thing  I 
had  to  offer." 

Judith's  laugh  rang  out.  She  had  a  capital  stage  laugh,  musical 
but  penetrating.  "  Nobody's  finding  fault  with  you,  stupid  man ! 
But  why  '  even  then '  ?  It's  not  four  months  since.  Where  is  the 
difference  ?  "  She  had  opened  her  eyes  full  on  him  to  laugh  at  him, 
and  now  closed  them  again  to  wait  for  an  answer.  Had  Challis 
been  at  his  best,  observing  nature  with  a  view  to  copy,  he  would 
have  noticed  that  last  time  she  laughed — about  the  sugar-plum's 
message — she  had  left  her  eyes  open,  full  flash  on  him. 

But  he  was  too  busy  with  a  difficulty  to  do  his  duty  by  human 
nature,  that  it  behoved  him  to  know,  like  Peter  Ronsard.  That 
unfortunate  "  even  then  "  that  he  had  blundered  out  had  brought 
him  face  to  face  with  a  fact  that — so  it  struck  him  now — he  had 
never  felt  properly  ashamed  of.  How  came  it  that,  up  to  this  mo- 
ment, he  had  scarcely  seen  in  it  a  matter  to  be  ashamed  of  at  all ; 
and  now,  almost  involuntarily,  he  had  drawn  a  distinction  between 
now  and  then  that  seemed  to  place  Judith  Arkroyd  then  on  a  lower 
level?  It  was  actually  true  that  three  months  ago  he  was  trying 
for  all  he  was  worth  to  negotiate  this  girl  into  the  good  graces  of 
his  stage  Jupiter;  to  get  her  on  the  boards  to  represent  a  woman 
whose  wickedness  he  had  specially  invented,  thereby  to  fall  into 
the  fashion  of  a  time  that  he  himself  accounted  an  age  of  stark 
fools.  For  he  had  never  come  across  an  Aminta  Torrington;  but 
he  conceived,  for  all  that,  when  he  put  her  on  the  stage,  and  set 
Mr.  Guppy  and  Dick  Swiveller  off  being  up-to-date  about  her,  that 
he  was  performing  his  part  in  the  dance — the  dance  of  fools!  He 
felt  he  was  in  difficulties,  and  even  for  a  moment  contemplated  an 
appeal  to  the  Artist's  Love  for  His  Work,  as  an  excuse  for  his 
own  attempt  to  get  the  help  of  Judith's  beauty  for  his  corps  drama- 
tique.  He  hesitated,  negatived  it,  and  said  to  himself  uncandidly 
that — thank  God ! — he  had  not  fallen  as  low  as  that.  But  he  never 
suspected,  as  this  story  has  begun  to  do,  that  his  sense  of  shame 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  this  lady  had  become  less  cheap  to  him 
in  these  three  months — dangerously  less. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  293 

But  he  could  not  leave  that  "Why  even  then?"  unanswered, 
with  his  questioner  waiting  there  behind  her  closed  eyelids  for  what- 
ever excuse  he  might  see  his  way  to.  Why  even  then?  He  felt 
he  was  flushing  a  little,  and  hoped  she  would  not  open  her  eyes. 
But  his  speech  hung  fire  too  long;  and  when  they  turned  on  him 
suddenly  to  see  what  it  was  going  to  be,  he  was  caught,  and  could 
only  see  his  way  out  through  frankness.  "  I  know,"  he  said — "  I 
know.  Of  course,  I  was  wrong  to  suggest  it.  Still,  it  was  the  only 
thing  that  came  to  hand.  It  was  either  that  or  nothing.  And  you 
wished  it  ...  and  besides  ..." 

"  I  am  not  blaming  you.  Go  on  .  .  .  '  and  besides '  .  .  . " 
The  beautiful  eyes  that  were  to  make  so  much  mischief  on  the 
Danube  were  almost  cruel  in  the  way  they  waited  for  what  Challis 
felt  he  had  better  not  have  begun  to  say. 

But  there  was  no  help  for  it  now.  He  had  to  continue,  and  did 
so :  " .  .  .  And  besides,  I  did  not  know  you  so  well  as  I  do  now 
...  I  mean,  I  saw  the  thing  differently.  ..."  He  was  getting 
deeper  and  deeper  in  the  mire,  and  the  eyes  showed  no  signs  of  let- 
ting him  off.  "  No ;  it's  no  use,"  he  said  abruptly.  "  I  did  wrong. 
But  then,  can  you  understand  me? — how  could  I  know  it  was 
you?  "  Then  he  made  a  weak  attempt  to  dispersonalize  his  words. 
"  No  one  of  us  remains  the  same."  And  then,  feeling  he  wasn't 
shining,  settled  to  hold  his  tongue.  But  he  did  not  look  Judith  in 
the  face  over  it. 

She,  for  her  part,  being  perfectly  collected  and  thoroughly 
mistress  of  herself,  only  saw  in  his  confusion  a  clear  token  that 
she  was  also  mistress  of  the  situation.  She  had  done  this  sort  of 
thing  before — love  of  power  being  always  her  chief  incentive — and 
had  come  out  scathless.  If  a  doubt  now  crossed  her  mind  that 
she  might  be  playing  with  edged  tools,  it  was  not  strong  enough  to 
stop  her. 

"  How  true  that  is !  Do  you  know,  Challis  " — please  note  this 
habit  of  address;  it  has  somehow  become  natural  to  Judith — "I 
was  thinking  only  just  now,  before  you  came  in,  how  completely 
you  have  changed  your  identity  since  those  days.  Do  you  remem- 
ber when  we  played  chess?  .  .  .  Well,  I'm  almost  ashamed  to 
tell  you  how  I  thought  of  you  then.  ..." 

"  You  owe  it  me.  See  how  I've  been  at  the  confessional  myself !  n 
Challis  submits  to  the  soul-brush  without  protest.  It  is  no  use. 
Why  resist? 

"  You  were  merely  an  author  whose  works  I  hadn't  read — yes ! — 
that's  true;  authors  never  have  any  idea  what  a  lot  of  people 
haven't  read  their  books.  I  thought  you  would  just  come  and  go, 


294  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

like  the  rest  of  them.  But  I  fancied  you  seemed  at  a  loose  end, 
and  I  would  take  pity  on  you.  I  never  thought  ..." 

"Never  thought  what?" 

"  Don't  look  so  empresse  over  it,  Challis!  "  Really,  this  woman's 
faculty  for  going  close  to  precipices,  foot-sure,  is  something  per- 
fectly marvellous.  Tenderness  outright  seemed  the  only  natural 
sequel  just  now.  But  she  will  get  back  to  safety,  after  gazing 
coolly  over  the  edge.  Trust  her !  "  I  couldn't  say  it  all  in  one 
word,  you  see.  .  .  .  Never  thought  that  in  six  months  you  would 
be  writing  a  tragedy  for  me  to  play  in.  That's  all  that  it  comes  to. 
At  any  rate,  you  seemed  quite  a  different  person  then."  Had  she 
recoiled  too  abruptly  from  the  precipice?  Is  there  slight  con- 
cession, just  to  accommodate  a  working  equilibrium,  in  her  last 
words?  Her  own  working  equilibrium,  mind  you; — in  which  to 
dangle  her  victim  over  that  precipice  at  leisure,  and  yet  to 
keep  able  to  deny  its  proximity  undisturbed,  or  pooh-pooh  it  al- 
together, at  choice.  For  a  thorough-paced  female  flirt  enjoys 
driving  her  quarry  mad  best,  when  she  knows  she  has  plausible 
innocent  unconsciousness  enough  left  in  the  cellar  to  quench 
any  fever  of  self -accusation  of  her  own.  "  Who  ever  said  a  word, 
or  thought  a  thought,  about  love-making?  ..."  Don't  we  know 
the  sort  of  thing  ? 

Challis's  own  frame  of  mind — for  the  story  must  needs  try  to 
define  it,  however  difficult  it  is  to  deal  with — was  one  of  a  sort 
of  thankfulness  that  he  had  perturbation  of  feeling  all  to  himself. 
Therein  lay  his  safety;  he  could  keep  it  secret  He  could  and 
•would  pay  for  it  by  additional  tenderness  to  poor  dear  Polly  Anne 
— who  was  Polly  Anne,  after  all,  mind  you ! — when  this  last  stupid 
bit  of  purposeless  quarrelsomeness  should  have  cleared  away.  But 
he  wanted  security  that  the  conflagration  whose  smouldering 
he  could  not  disguise  from  himself  would  be  local.  He  had  just, 
only  just,  stamped  out  a  spark  that  might  have  become  a  flame  at 
that  precipice-edge,  now  a  moment  since.  Ho  was  willing  to  go 
great  lengths  in  persuading  himself  that  there  were  no  fires 
smouldering  elsewhere;  for  to  what  end,  in  Heaven's  name,  should 
he  recognize  them? 

But  suppose  he  should  be  forced  to !  Suppose  he  should  find  one 
day  that  he  could  no  longer  parade  before  his  mind  this  creed  that 
was  his  security — this  impossibility  that  he  was  ever  present  in 
Iris  absence  to  this  woman;  as  he  had  to  confess  perforce,  struggle 
as  he  might  against  growing  conviction,  she  was  so  often — nearly 
always — present  to  him.  He  built  this  faith  upon  a  rock  of  friend- 
ship, genial  and  firm,  but  always  cold,  that  an  exaggerated  respect 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  295 

for  her  character — which  really  did  him  honour — chose  to  assign 
as  the  only  leasehold  her  heart  could  accommodate  him  with.  Per- 
haps unfounded  hallucinations  about  the  beauty  of  Judith's  char- 
acter were  the  most  dangerous  features  of  the  disease  Alfred 
Challis  was  sickening  for,  if  it  had  not  developed  already. 

All  this  may  seem  too  many  words  about  a  simple  thing.  Per- 
haps Sibyl's  way  of  disposing  of  the  subject  was  more  intelligible 
— saved  trouble,  certainly.  "That  man  admires  you  too  much, 
Judith,  for  it  to  be  safe  to  play  tricks  with  him.  You'll  do  this 
sort  of  thing  once  too  often.  And  then  you'll  be  sorry."  However, 
it  was  clear  that  there  could  be  no  real  danger  as  long  as  the  lady 
remained  detached,  and  very  little  as  long  as  the  gentleman  was 
convinced  that  she  was  so. 

And  he  may  have  been  so  convinced — one  would  have  said — 
when  he  found  himself  able  to  answer  Judith  with  a  philosophical, 
"  Have  you  ever  known  a  new  acquaintance  not  to  change  com- 
pletely in  the  first  six  months  ?  "  And  she  may  have  thought  he 
was  running  too  much  to  abstractions  when  she  said,  "  I  did  not 
say  you  had  changed  completely";  as  though  she  would  not  have 
him  suppose  her  too  unconcerned.  He  was  not  to  slip  from  the 
web  she  was  weaving  round  him  by  a  device  of  gossipy  discussion. 
Her  remark  just  met  the  case;  and  the  soul-brush,  which  had  got 
a  little  out  of  gear,  got  to  work  again. 

They  went  back  to  the  tragedy,  and  talked  of  it  so  long  that  at 
length  it  came  to  measuring  the  minutes  by  his  watch.  Then 
Judith  said  to  him,  as  though  she  had  but  just  recollected  it :  "  You 
found  my  letter,  I  suppose?"  No,  he  had  not — had  she  written? 
Oh  yes! — it  was  posted  last  thing  last  night.  There  was  nothing 
in  it,  or  she  would  have  spoken  about  it.  The  fact  that  she  had 
written  lubricated  that  soul-brush.  But  he  must  go,  or  he  would 
be  late.  A  few  more  words,  mostly  about  how  last  night's  enter- 
tainment had  missed  her  presence,  and  the  lady  the  Ross  Tarbets 
had  brought  in  her  stead  had  proved  a  failure,  and  then  Challis  was 
standing  beside  her  to  say  adieu — her  hand  in  his.  Really  in- 
evitable, if  you  think  of  it,  on  the  supposition  that  the  forms  of 
civilization  are  to  continue  to  hold  good. 

It  was  a  perversity  of  Fate  that  chose  this  very  moment  for  the 
only  other  frequenter  of  that  room  to  open  the  door  unheard. 
Judith  could  not  see  her  sister  through  Challis  as  he  stood  there. 
He  turned  to  go. 

"  Oh,  Mr.  Challis.  I  did  not  see  it  was  you.  Perhaps  you  are 
talking  business.  Don't  let  me  disturb  you." 

"  Not  at  all.    I  am  just  going." 


296  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Stop  one  minute,  Mr.  Challis."  Thus  Judith.  "  Never  inind 
Sibyl !  You  must  try  to  persuade  Mrs.  Challis  to  come  and  see  us. 
Now  promise  you  will ! "  She  had  not  referred  to  Marianne  before, 
by  the  way. 

"  I'll  try  what  I  can  do.  But  my  wife  goes  her  own  way.  Good- 
bye! Good-bye,  Miss  Sibyl! " 

"  How  long  had  he  been  here? " 

"  Over  an  hour.  I  can't  say  exactly.  You  must  ask  Flphinstone 
when  he  came,  if  you  want  to  know." 

"  It  doesn't  matter  to  me  when  he  came." 

"  You  asked."  Sibyl  made  no  reply.  A  lunch-gong  sounded  be- 
low, and  she  vanished,  but  presently  returned. 

"  You  are  not  coming  down  to  lunch  ? "  she  said.  "  At  least,  are 
you?  Or  not?" 

"  Of  course  not !  How  could  I,  without  flying  in  Sir  Rhys- 
combe's  face  ? " 

But  Sibyl's  question  had  been  mere  conversation-making,  or 
skirmish-seeking.  She  said  what  she  meant  directly  after.  "I 
suppose  it's  perfectly  useless  my  saying  anything.  But  you  know 
•what  I  think." 

"  I  know  what  you  think,  dear !    Go  to  lunch." 

"  Very  well,  Judith !  "  And  Sibyl  departed  for  lunch  as  Judith 
sounded  her  bell  for  her  little  handmaid,  the  reputed  sugar-plum. 

"How  long  will  it  take  you  to  get  to  Wimbledon?"  Challis 
asked  the  driver  of  the  waiting  cab. 

"  A  tidy  long  time,  the  rate  I'm  going  now ! "  was  the  reply. 
"  Jump  in ! "  Challis,  feeling  he  was  in  the  hands  of  a  master- 
mind, obeyed  without  question,  and  the  cab  was  off,  at  speed.  Pres- 
ently the  master-mind  said  briefly,  through  his  orifice  above — as 
King  Solomon  may  have  spoken  to  the  evil  djinn  he  bottled — 
"  Within  the  hour,"  and  closed  it  on  his  fare  for  that  period.  The 
djinn  was  in  for  a  lifer,  and  was  immortal;  so  thought  Challis  to 
himself.  That  was  too  long,  but  short  of  that,  something  over  an 
hour  would  not  be  unwelcome — just  to  think  things  over  a  little  1 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

HOW  MARIANNE  WENT  TO  TULSE  HILL.  OF  BOB'S  PHONOGRAPH,  AND 
HOW  HE  POSTED  A  LETTER  TO  JUDITH.  OF  MARIANNE'S  RETURN, 
AND  MORE  MISUNDERSTANDINGS.  BUT  IT  WOULD  BE  ALL  RIGHT  IN 
THE  MORNING 

IF  King  Solomon's  captive  had  gone  on  scheming  conciliatory 
attitudes  through  all  eternity,  he  would  probably  have  failed  to  hit 
upon  the  right  one  at  the  end  of  it,  from  mere  want  of  presence  of 
mind.  Even  the  short  "  Within  the  hour  "  of  Challis's  cabman  was 
a  little  too  long  for  his  fare  to  think  things  over  in  safety,  without 
a  risk  of  the  things  tripping  one  another  up.  He  conceived  a  very 
good  deportment  to  suit  his  return,  based  on  sorrow  for  being  so 
late,  and  then  began  to  complicate  it  with  considerations  whether  he 
should  at  once  inquire  more  particulars  about  Marianne's  al- 
leged— and  denied — indisposition  of  last  night,  or  let  it  alone. 
Also,  should  he  confess  up  at  once  where  he  had  spent  most  of  the 
morning,  or  let  that  alone !  Perhaps  that  letter  of  Judith's  that  he 
would  find  on  arriving  would  help  matters.  Yes,  it  would!  He 
pictured  himself  to  himself — as  an  actor  in  the  concurrent  drama 
of  Life  that  he  always  made  notes  of  by  the  way — saying,  "  Oh  yes ! 
That's  nothing! — only  about  the  play.  I  saw  Miss  Arkroyd  for  a 
few  minutes  this  morning.  You  know,  she  was  kept  away  last 
night  by  a  sprained  ankle,  so  I  went  to  inquire.  Hm-hm-hm !  " 
He  went  the  length  of  supplying  the  sound  of  reading  a  letter  to 
himself,  and  threw  the  imaginary  pieces  he  had  torn  it  up  into,  to 
show  how  unimportant  it  was,  into  an  image  of  a  waste-paper 
basket.  Then  he  turned  round,  that  actor,  and  kissed  his  wife, 
who  had  recovered  her  temper.  And  then  all  went  well  in  that  play, 
and  that  actor  told  himself  not  to  be  a  damned  idiot  about  a  fash- 
ionable beauty,  who  knew  he  was  a  married  man  with  a  family,  and 
hadn't  the  slightest  idea  that — well? — that  anything! 

That  was  the  play.  The  reality  did  not  work  out  so  comfortably. 
Challis  was  in  time  for  lunch,  as  the  cabman  was  as  good  as  his 
word.  "  Fifty-six  and  a  half,"  said  he,  looking  at  his  watch ;  and 
added,  in  a  comfortable  sort  of  way,  "  Make  it  up  eight  shillings," 
as  one  who  felt  he  really  deserved  the  extra  half-crown  or  so.  He 
had  a  pleasant,  engaging  manner  with  the  opposite  sex,  this  cab- 

897 


298  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

man,  saying  to  Hannood,  -when  she  brought  him  his  money  out: 
"Don't  you  get  married  without  letting  me  know,  my  dear!  My 
old  woman,  she  might  get  sick  of  me  any  minute  1 "  But  Misa 
Harmood  was  accustomed  to  admiration. 

Mrs.  Challis  had  left  word  not  to  wait  lunch,  said  the  young  lady, 
returning  undisturbed.  Also,  there  was  a  note  to  say  with  the 
letters — that  is,  to  wit,  with  the  postal  accumulations.  Challis, 
opening  it,  found  a  bald  and  severe  statement  that  the  writer  was 
going  to  Tulse  Hill,  and  might  be  late.  Marianne's  mother's 
domicile  was  always  spoken  of  as  Tulse  Hill.  Challis  knew  that 
this  mother  and  daughter  were  seldom  on  cordial  terms  except 
when  he  was  in  disgrace  with  both,  and  it  did  not  tend  to  allay 
the  feeling  of  irritated  mystification  that  came  back  now  to  Challis, 
with  quickened  memory  of  the  events  of  the  morning,  that  his  wife 
should  have  pitched  on  this  particular  moment  for  a  visit  to  Tulse 
Hill.  She  really  seldom  went  to  see  her  mother,  for  she  was  very 
lazy.  But — and  this  was  a  big  but — she  always  went  to  see  her 
when  there  had  been  dissensions.  So  much  so  that  when  at  any 
time  Challis  found  that  she  had  gone  to  Tulse  Hill  his  tendency 
was  to  look  back  through  the  last  twenty-four  hours  to  discover 
what  skirmish  was  responsible  for  the  visit. 

This  time  he  was  completely  baffled.  His  wife  knew  perfectly 
well  that  she  had  been  invited — cordially  invited — to  this  last 
night's  entertainment.  Did  all  this  mean  that  in  the  end  he  would 
have  to  give  up  associating  with  the  outer  world,  and  restrict  him- 
self to  John  Eldridge  and  Lewis  Smithson  ?  That  seemed  the  only 
programme  compatible  with  the  enjoyment  of  a  comfortable  home. 
Only  for  God's  sake  let  it  be  formulated  I  Let  him  know  what  he 
had  to  expect,  and  Challis  would  put  his  sign-manual  to  any  rea- 
sonable treaty.  ...  He  stopped  suddenly,  yet  asked  himself — 
why  stop?  Then,  knowing  well  that  he  dared  not  answer  his  own 
question,  flinched  off  the  subject. 

This  phase  of  reflection  did  not  come  immediately  on  opening 
Marianne's  note.  He  had  passed  through  a  brief  epoch  of  lunch  for 
himself  and  dinner  for  Bob  and  Cat  and  Emmie  since  then.  It 
had  been  a  riotous  but  not  unpleasant  experience,  and  Challis  was 
grateful  for  it.  Bob's  greeting  to  him  had  been,  exactly 
transcribed:  "Mater's  gone  to  Tulse  Hill.  I  say! — if  you  were 
to  give  me  five  shillings,  I  could  buy  a  phonograph,  because  I've 
saved  up  fifteen.  Tommy  Eldridge  has  got  one  that  does  a 
menagerie,  and  you  can  hear  a  man  having  his  head  bit  off."  This 
felt  jolly  and  cheerful,  especially  as  the  two  little  girls  jumped 
with  eagerness  to  hear  the  subsidy  voted.  Imitations  of  insub- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  299 

ordinate  wild  beasts,  and  the  sounds  incidental  to  detaching  a  Ben- 
gal tiger  from  his  prey  with  red-hot  irons,  made  lunch  pass  pleas- 
antly, and  Challis  felt  much  happier.  He  granted  the  five  shil- 
lings on  condition  that  no  operatic  records  should  be  purchased. 
He  had  heard  "  Voi  che  sapete  "  through  a  gramophone  once,  and 
he  knew ! 

He  was  in  his  study,  and  Bob  had  probably  nearly  arrived  at  the 
phonograph  local  plague-centre  in  Putney,  when  he  got  to  spec- 
ulation, acknowledged  as  such,  about  a  modus  vivendi  for  himself 
and  the  mother  of  those  two  little  wenches.  He  denied  Judith  any 
place  in  the  problem,  preferring  to  recognize,  as  the  sole  difficulty 
he  had  to  fight  against,  the  attitude  of  Marianne  towards  what  he 
summed  up  as  "  Grosvenor  Square "  compendiously.  He  refused 
to  admit  that  the  class  of  feelings  he  entertained  towards  that  lady 
— or  might  have  entertained ;  he  wouldn't  quite  admit  them — could 
possibly  come  under  discussion  so  long  as  he  kept  them  to  himself. 
Why,  if  every  trifling  vibration  of  personal  feeling,  every  grain 
of  salt  on  the  dish  of  a  man's  friendship  for  a  woman,  was  to  be 
made  the  foundation  of  an  indictment  of  faithlessness  to  his  wife, 
where  would  matrimony  be?  But  he  nearly  lost  the  thread  of 
his  reflections  in  the  obligation  to  define  what  the  feelings  were 
that  he  was  refusing  to  admit. 

He  would  not  allow  for  a  moment  that  these  feelings  could  pos- 
Bibly  interfere  with  his  affection  for  his  wife.  In  fact,  he  actu- 
ally shouted  "  Nonsense ! "  aloud  in  answer  to  some  accusation  to 
that  effect  for  which  he  was  not  responsible.  So  loud,  in  fact,  that 
Harmood  came,  and  said,  "  Did  you  call,  sir  ?  "  and  disbelieved  the 
"  No,  7  didn't ! "  that  she  was  met  with.  He  would  not  have  felt 
foolish  on  hearing  his  own  voice  getting  out  of  bounds,  but  he 
did  when  it  came  home  to  him  that  Harmood  must  have  heard 
him  two  rooms  off  at  least.  This  would  never  do.  He  would 
get  back  to  the  Ostrogoths.  How  about  Estrild's  little  hand- 
maiden?— a  good  name  for  her? — something  ending  in  ilia? 
Favilla  ?— Scintilla  ?— Yes,  that  would  do,  without  the  8;  other- 
wise, like  Law  Courts  and  tittles  of  evidence !  Yes — certainly  Cin- 
tilla !  But  he  got  no  further. 

Because  the  little  sugar-plum  brought  back  his  interview  of  the 
morning.  There  was  Judith  again — he  had  nearly  given  up  think- 
ing of  her  as  Miss  Arkroyd — holding  the  mirror  at  arm's-length 
to  make  it  include  both  faces  easily,  watching  the  ensemble  with 
a  slightly  Ostrogothic  effect,  sympathetically  resumed  from  some 
passage  in  the  play  she  had  half  read,  and  knew  the  purport  of; 
eyelids  thrown  up  as  per  instructions  of  stage-trainer,  to  secure 


300  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  glare  which  seems  to  have  come  so  freely  on  the  faces  of  all 
our  forbears  whom  the  Stage  has  thought  worthy  of  portrayal;  just 
a  hint  of  what  upper  lip  and  nostrils  could  do,  if  they  tried,  in 
the  way  of  callousness  towards  tortured  prisoners.  For  Judith 
had  been  thinking  over  the  part.  And  how  grand  her  eyes  were, 
too ! — something  of  the  dark  colour  of  sapphires  by  artificial  light. 
And  the  little  chick's  face  had  come  so  well !  That  episode  of  the 
monkey-soap  had  produced  a  nuance  of  terror-stroke;  exactly  how 
Cintilla  would  have  looked  over  a  Christian  martyrdom;  a  penalty 
deserved  by  a  Dissenter,  but  alarming,  for  all  that.  He  would  tell 
Judith  next  time  he  wrote.  .  .  .  Well! — he  would  write,  of 
course.  But  it  was  all  in  the  way  of  business.  What  of  that  ?  .  .  . 
He  would  tell  her  he  had  christened  the  child  Cintilla.  She  would 
call  her  Cintilla  now;  he  was  sure  of  it.  ...  Now  he  must  get 
to  work!  This  would  never  do. 

He  actually  did  get  to  work  this  time.  He  wrote  blank  verse,  or 
prose  abstract  to  turn  into  blank  verse,  or  other  blank  verse  that 
was  better  than  the  first  blank  verse;  or,  if  worse,  could  be  rejected 
when  found  wanting.  But  the  worst  was  when  alternatives  turned 
out  equal — impossible  to  make  choice  of.  After  a  while,  he  found 
himself  with  two  such  samples  to  choose  between.  Which  speech 
of  the  two  would  come  best  from  the  lips  of  Estrild?  He  had  to 
acknowledge  that  he  was  puzzled. 

And  yet  a  good  deal  might  depend  on  it.  He  was  wavering  be- 
tween two  courses  in  the  plot  of  the  play.  Each  of  these  speeches 
seemed  to  point  to  one.  Suppose  he  chose  the  one  that,  afterwards, 
Judith  liked  least,  and  followed  on  the  line  of  plot  that  suited  it! 
He  would  not  feel  happy  over  it,  that  way.  Obviously,  Judith  was 
the  proper  person  to  decide.  Master  Bob  might  just  as  well  carry 
the  speeches  to  a  handy  typewriter  at  Putney,  wait  for  them  to  be 
executed,  and  bring  them  back.  Or  stop!  Challis  knew  he  could 
rely  on  the  accuracy  of  this  typist,  at  a  pinch.  Why  not  write  to 
Judith,  leaving  the  envelope  open,  and  let  Master  Bob  put  the 
typed  copy  in  and  post  it  ?  It  would  save  a  deal  of  time.  Then  he 
would  be  able  to  get  on  with  the  play  first  thing  in  the  morning,  if 
an  answer  came  by  the  early  post,  as  it  might.  He  could  mention 
Cintilla,  too. 

So  said,  so  done!  Master  Bob  was  off  like  a  shot,  though 
reluctant  to  leave  his  phono,  whose  hideous  din  had  been  audible 
from  afar  since  its  arrival  an  hour  ago.  No  sooner  was  he  past  re- 
call than  Challis  remembered  that  if  he  had  decided  the  question 
himself,  it  never  would  have  been  necessary  to  show  the  rejected 
version  to  Judith  at  all!  But  the  fact  is  he  had  got  rather  into  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  301 

way  of  consulting  her.  Anyhow,  it  couldn't  matter  much,  either 
way.  He  went  back  to  his  writing,  and  found  something  else  to  go 
on  with.  He  went  on  with  it  peacefully  until  a  cab  arrived,  and 
he  looked  out,  expecting  that  it  was  Marianne.  It  was  not,  and  he 
had  an  odd  sensation  of  being  glad  he  was  sorry  it  was  not.  He 
saw  who  the  visitor  was,  and  retired. 

Confound  that  woman!  Why  on  earth  need  Charlotte  Eldridge 
come  bothering  in  when  Marianne  was  away  ?  A  confirmatory  an- 
nouncement is  followed  by,  "  Oh,  Mrs.  Eldridge ! — Did  you  tell  her 
your  mistress  wasn't  here  ? "  Thus  Challis  to  Harmood,  who 
checks  the  incorrectness  of  his  speech.  "  I  said  Mrs.  Challis  was 
not  at  home,  sir.  Mrs.  Eldridge  said  she  would  come  in  and  wait." 
On  which  Challis's  comment — too  much  to  himself  to  rank  as  an 
answer — is,  "  She'll  have  to  wait." 

"  Am  I  to  tell  her  so,  sir  ? "  Harmood,  docile  and  well-bred, 
awaits  instructions. 

"No! — don't  tell  her  anything.  Perhaps  your  mistress  will  be 
in  soon." 

Challis  made  a  show,  for  his  own  satisfaction,  of  going  on  with 
his  work — but  not  for  very  long.  As  tea-time  drew  near,  he  looked 
at  his  watch,  and  decided  not  to  have  tea  in  the  drawing-room  with 
his  visitor,  but  to  go  out.  So,  when  he  looked  in  on  Charlotte  for 
a  moment,  he  was  in  walking  trim,  and  merely  shook  hands  hur- 
riedly, and  said :  "  Marianne  must  be  in  soon.  She'll  never  stay  to 
dine  at  Tulse  Hill.  I  have  to  go.  Ring  the  bell  for  tea,  and  make 
Harmood  attend  to  you  properly.  Ta-ta ! "  and  departed,  affecting 
haste. 

Mrs.  Eldridge  was  not  quite  ready  for  tea,  and  also  hoped  Mrs. 
Challis  would  reappear  shortly.  So  she  postponed  summoning  the 
handmaiden,  and  took  Challis's  old  novel,  "  The  Spendthrift's  Leg- 
acy," from  the  bookshelves,  wishing  to  compare  the  portrait  of  his 
first  wife,  which  she  knew  it  contained,  with  current  events.  As 
she  speculated  over  this  and  that,  an  unmistakable  boy's  head — 
that  first  wife's  boy's — came  in  at  the  door,  and  said  "  Hullo !  "  in  a 
very  uncompromising  way.  It  was  merely  greeting — no  more  I 

"Well,  Master  Bob,  where  have  you  been?  Come  in  and  talk, 
and  shut  the  door." 

"  Haven't  got  much  time  for  talk.  I  say!  I  wonder  if  you  can 
hear  up  here.  We've  got  such  a  ripping  phonograph." 

"I  can  hear  beautifully."  Indeed,  a  woe-begone  and  God-for- 
gotten croak  has  been  audible  for  some  minutes,  rendering  patter- 
songs.  Bob  warms  to  his  subject:  "Isn't  it  awfully  jolly?  You're 
really  sure  you  can  hear,  though?  I  say,  though,  isn't  it  a  pity? 


302  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

I  got  'Movement  in  A  flat,'  and  I  might  have  had  'The  White- 
Eyed  Musical  Kaffir,'  and  it's  such  rot.  Harmood  says  she's  sure 
it's  only  music — like  pianos." 

"  Why  don't  you  open  it  and  see  ? " 

"  Because  then  they  won't  change  it.  I  might  have  changed  it 
when  I  was  out,  if  I'd  known.  But  I  thought  it  was  a  row  in  a 
house,  and  furniture  getting  broke,  don't  you  know?"  He  gives 
further  particulars  of  his  misapprehension,  but  it  will  be  as  clear 
as  it  needs  to  be  without  them. 

"  Where  did  you  go  when  you  were  out  ? "  Mrs.  Eldridge  seems 
strangely  unconcerned  about  the  phonograph.  But  Bob  is  too  high 
in  the  seventh  heaven  about  it  to  conceive  it  possible  that  such  in- 
difference should  exist.  He  takes  his  hearer's  sympathy  for 
granted,  and  as  for  suspecting  any  non-phonographic  motives  in  his 
questioner — impossible ! 

"  Putney.  I  could  have  gone  to  the  shop  twice  over  in  the  time 
I  was  waiting." 

"  What  were  you  waiting  for  ? " 

"  Tyepwriter.    For  the  governor.    Oh — quite  half  an  hour ! " 

"  What  a  shame !  And  you  wasted  all  that  time  waiting.  But 
you  got  what  you  went  for?  I  mean  your  father  got  his  type- 
writing ? " 

"  No  fear ! "  This  with  scorn.  Then,  to  keep  the  heaven  of 
veracity  spotless :  "  He  didn't  get  it,  you  know.  I  shoved  it  in  her 
envelope,  and  shoved  it  in  the  pillar-box  in  High  Street.  Not 
the  one  near  the  tobacconist's." 

"  Whose  envelope  ? " 

"  It  was  all  right.  There  wasn't  any  other.  Judith's.  I  say — 
are  you  quite  sure  you  can  hear  up  here?  Hadn't  I  better  bring 
it  up,  while  you  have  tea?"  For  tea  is  coming  of  its  own  ac- 
cord, audibly,  outside  the  door. 

"  No — after  tea.  I  shall  listen  better.  Whose  letter  did  you  say 
you  put  in  ?  Judith's — who's  Judith  ? " 

"  Oh — you  know !  Me  and  Cat  always  call  her  Judith.  Miss 
Arkrojd"  There  is  a  trace  of  contempt,  quite  unexplained,  in  the 
accent  on  the  first  syllable.  But  Bob  will  be  lenient,  adding,  "  But 
she  gave  me  my  skates."  Then,  for  he  cannot  honestly  conceal  a 
defect,  "  She's  duchessy,  for  all  that.  A  hundred-and-one,  Gros- 
venor  Square,  W."  And  leaves  her,  classified. 

Should  Harmood  make  the  tea  ?  Not  on  Mrs.  Eldridge's  account, 
certainly!  Mrs.  Challis  was  sure  to  be  back.  Too  probably,  in 
practice,  for  either  speaker  to  say  "D.V."  about  it.  But  no 
atheism  was  meant — far  from  it!  Harmood  attended  to  the  fire; 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  303 

enough  just  to  keep  it  in,  although  if  it  went  on  like  this  we 
should  soon  be  able  to  do  without.  And  the  water  couldn't  go  off 
the  boil  as  long  as  there  was  ever  so  little  methylated.  Mrs. 
Eldridge  was  beginning  to  fear  that  there  was  ever  so  little,  and 
that  the  boil's  hour  was  come;  and  was  questioning  whether  it 
would  not  be  better  on  the  whole  to  make  tea  in  order  that  its  get- 
ting cold  should  favour  Marianne's  return,  when  a  cab-sound 
recommended  itself  to  her  notice  for  some  unexplained  reason,  and 
she  began  making  the  tea.  She  really  wished  to  see  Mrs.  Challis, 
having  a  card  in  her  hand  she  wanted  to  play.  One  fights  against 
a  misdeal  when  one  has  seen  the  ace  of  trumps  in  one's  hand. 
But  let  us  be  just  to  Mrs.  Charlotte.  Of  course,  it  was  well  under- 
stood, between  her  and  her  conscience,  that  her  motive  was  to  make 
sure  that  no  mischief  came  of  that  letter  to  Miss  Arkroyd.  Sup- 
pose that  young  monkey  were  to  say  he  posted  the  letter,  and  say 
nothing  about  the  palliative  typewriting!  And  then  suppose 
Alfred  never  thought  it  worth  mentioning  that  he  had  written  at 
all.  Quite  a  case  for  a  judicious  friend,  etc.,  etc.  Oh,  these 
meddlers ! 

The  cab  was  Mrs.  Challis — not  literally;  only  household  patois — 
and  Mrs.  Challis  was  sorry  she  was  so  late,  Charlotte.  Why  had 
that  lady  not  had  tea?  Marianne's  manner  was  dry  and  hard. 
No — she  was  not  the  least  tired,  she  said.  She  would  go  up  and 
take  her  things  off  and  come  down  immediately.  She  threw  out  a 
skirmisher  to  stop  that  horrible  noise  on  her  way  up ;  and  when  she 
returned,  if  peace  did  not  exactly  reign  where  Bob  was,  some- 
where below,  at  any  rate  the  sounds  that  continued  were  human, 
not  diabolical. 

"Well?"    Mrs.  Eldridge  spoke  first. 

"  Wait  till  I've  had  some  tea,  and  I'll  tell  you."  A  cup  apiece 
elapsed,  and  then  Marianne  said  briefly :  "  Says  it's  a  parcel  of  lies. 
If  poor  Kate  had  been  married,  she  must  have  known." 

Charlotte  considered.  The  detective  character  asserted  itself. 
"  How  does  she  account  for  Mrs.  Steptoe  knowing  the  name  of  these 
Hallock  people?" 

"  She  doesn't  account  for  it." 

"What  does  she  suppose  her  motive  to  be?" 

"  She  doesn't  suppose." 

u  Even  if  she  knew  the  name,  it's  impossible  to  believe  she  would 
trump  up  such  a  story  I  With  nothing  to  gain  by  it,  Marianne 
dear,  with  nothing  to  gain  by  it !  " 

"  I  didn't  say  I  did  believe  it.     I  only  told  you  what  mamma  said.  " 

A  conversation  that  flags  from  lack  of  any  visible  step  forward 


S04  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

welcomes  another  cup  of  tea,  to  pause  on.  After  a  measure  of 
silence,  so  filled  out,  consciousness  of  the  impasse  brought  in  a  new 
element,  as  stimulus. 

"  I  talked  to  John  about  it." 

"  Why  must  you  talk  to  John  ? " 

"  My  dear  Marianne !  Well !  John's  a  fool,  I  know,  but  I  have  a 
great  respect  for  his  judgment,  sometimes.  I  shouldn't  have  begun 
about  it  myself.  But  he  was  there  when  Mrs.  Steptoe  was  looking 
at  the  photographs,  and  he  spoke  of  it  to  me.  .  .  .  What  did  he 
speak  of  ?  Oh — the  whole  thing !  " 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"  It  wasn't  so  much  what  he  said.  You  know  his  way.  He  only 
said  that  a  party  he  knew  in  the  City  knew  a  man  in  a  Private 
Inquiry  Office,  and  that  sort  of  thing  always  ran  into  money.  So 
his  idea  was — you  know  how  funnily  he  phrases  things? — his  idea 
was  that  '  keep  it  snug '  was  the  word.  In  fact,  he  repeated  it  sev- 
eral times.  John's  habit  of  repetition  gets  rather  irritating,  now 
and  then." 

"  Did  he  say  nothing  else  ? " 

"I  don't  think  he  did  ...  oh  yes! — he  exonerated  your  hus- 
band. At  least,  he  said  that  that  sort  of  trap  wasn't  the  sort  of 
trap  anyone  would  suspect  Titus  of  being  up  to.  It  was  a  little 
obscure,  but  John  is  obscure." 

Marianne  showed  no  disposition  to  take  an  interest  in  John's 
opinions,  even  assuming  them  to  be  capable  of  recasting  in  an  in- 
telligible form.  She  sat  holding  her  teacup,  as  one  anxious  not  to 
break  with  a  pleasant  memory.  But  her  face  was  not  pleasant  for 
all  that.  It  might  be  unfair  to  say  it  had  a  set  jaw  and  a  scowl, 
because  that  suggests  a  prizefighter  without  a  prize.  But  accept  as 
much  of  the  description  as  leaves  an  image  of  a  comely  woman  with 
dark  hair — plenty  of  it — in  a  plait,  and  rather  embonpoint  for 
thirty.  Put  in  the  mole  we  have  spoken  of,  just  on  the  cheekbone ; 
but  don't  run  away  with  the  idea  that  there  must  be  a  stye  in  the 
eye  on  the  other  side,  that  you  are  not  looking  at.  Let  Marianne 
have  all  that  is  left  of  a  bonny  robust  girlhood  that  was  in  its  day 
rather  more  acceptable — consciously  so — to  her  brother-in-law  than 
the  more  delicate  approach  to  beauty  of  his  deceased  wife.  But 
Marianne  had  gone  off,  too;  there  was  no  doubt  of  it.  Neverthe- 
less— and  in  spite  of  occasional  acerbity  and  frequent  sullenness — 
her  husband  loyally  cherished  the  idea  that  she  was  good  with  a 
deep-buried  goodness,  a  quality  that  might  be  relied  on  when  the 
hour  of  trial  came,  a  rockbed  of  sound-heartedness,  to  build  on 
even  when  appearances  suggested  earthquake. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  305 

Some  such  appearance  may  have  made  Mrs.  Eldridge  cautious 
about  pursuing  the  thread  of  John's  judgments,  as  she  joined  in 
her  friend's  silence  beyond  her  usual  habit — a  loquacious  one. 
Presently  she  said,  to  relieve  the  monotony,  "  Shall  I  put  your  cup 
down?"  and  took  it  with  a  well-formed  hand  she  was  vain  of — 
indeed,  it  ran  close  to  beauty — from  one  that  was  rather  a  defect  in 
its  owner;  too  chubby,  too  accented  at  the  rings,  to  be  redeemed  by 
a  mere  addendum  of  filbert-nailed  fingers. 

Marianne  then  said,  as  she  surrendered  the  cup :  "  You  saw  him 
before  he  went  out  ? "  She  spoke  as  though  she  took  her 
companion's  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  her  own  silence  for 
granted. 

Mrs.  Eldridge  seemed  to  acquiesce.  "  He  looked  in  for  a  mo- 
ment," she  said. 

"  I  suppose  he  got  his  letter."  This  was  mainly  thinking  aloud, 
for  how  could  Charlotte  know  anything  about  his  letter?  She 
could  guess,  though,  and  was  not  slow  over  it. 

"  I  suppose  so,  because  he  answered  it."  Then  she  may  have 
felt  that  her  knowing  so  much  without  data  might  seem  unwar- 
ranted ;  for  she  added :  "  At  least,  if  it  was  a  letter  from  her,"  and 
then  explanatorily,  in  response  to  an  inquiring  look,  "Yes! — 
Judith  Arkroyd,  of  course."  She  probably  had  no  definitely  mis- 
chievous motive  in  the  phrasing  of  this.  The  assumption  that  any 
"  her "  must  be  Miss  Arkroyd  only  showed  what  she  herself  had 
been  thinking  of.  But  it  teemed  with  suggestion  of  continuous 
correspondence  between  the  lady  and  gentleman  in  hand.  Mari- 
anne flushed  angrily,  far  more  moved  by  the  way  in  which  she 
heard  of  it  than  by  the  mere  letter  itself.  It  was  only  one  of  many 
letters,  after  all ! 

"  How  do  you  know  ?    How  can  you  tell  ? " 

"  Marianne  dear — really !  " 

"  Really  what  ?  No,  Charlotte,  you're  nonsensical.  Of  course  it 
was  her!  Why  do  you  take  a  pleasure  in  mystifying  me?  Can't 
you  tell  me  what  you  mean  ?  How  do  you  know  he  answered  it  ? " 

"Dear,  if  you'll  be  patient,  I'll  tell  you.  But,  really,  you  do 
make  so  much  out  of  nothing  .  .  .  it's  all  about  nothing."  And, 
indeed,  Mrs.  Eldridge  looked  frightened,  as  a  mischief-maker  may 
whose  hobby  has  got  the  bit  in  its  teeth. 

"If  it's  nothing,  at  least  you  can  tell  me  what  it  is."  And 
Marianne,  who  a  moment  since  was  red,  now  goes  white,  with 
hands  just  restless  and  a  foot  that  taps  uneasily.  There  had  been 
nothing  in  antecedent  circumstance  to  warrant  so  much  excite- 
ment. So  thinks  Mrs.  Charlotte,  and  would  like  to  hark  back,  and 


306  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

make  her  mischief  gradually,  on  congenial  safe  lines.  A  row 
would  be  premature,  to  her  thinking. 

"What  what  is,  Marianne  dear?"  she  says.  But  then  makes 
concession :  "  Only,  of  course,  dear,  I  know  what  you  mean.  How 
did  7  come  to  know  about  the  letter  he  sent  her?  It's  quite 
simple.  ..." 

"Well— goon!" 

".  .  .It  was  Bob.  He  was  in  here  just  now,  and  told  me  his 
father  had  sent  him  to  post  a  letter  to  Judith — that's  what  the 
young  monkey  calls  her — and  then  you  asked  if  he  had  got  his  let- 
ter. Of  course,  I  thought  it  must  be  from  her." 

"Why?" 

"  Oh,  nonsense  why,  Marianne  dear !  How  could  it  be  anyone 
else?"  And  Mrs.  Challis  cannot  answer  this,  naturally,  as  she 
knows  quite  well  it  was  Judith's  handwriting  alone  that  attracted 
her  attention  to  the  letter,  and  that  there  were  at  least  a  dozen  other 
items  by  the  same  post.  Charlotte  continued :  "  I  can  see  nothing 
to  make  such  a  fuss  about.  With  this  play-acting  going  on,  a  let- 
ter might  be  anything." 

"  How  do  you  know  I  thought  it  wasn't  anything  ? " 

"I  dare  say  you  didn't,  dear.  Of  course,  one  takes  for  granted 
that  one's  husband  .  .  .  well! — even  if  it  was  John,  it  would 
never  occur  to  me.  And  look  at  the  difference  between  my  John 
and  your  Titus !  " 

As  it  is  impossible  to  fathom  Mrs.  Eldridge's  motive  for  ascribing 
the  character  of  Lovelace  to  the  chosen  of  her  affections,  the  at- 
tempt shall  not  be  made.  Some  things  begin,  exist,  and  cease,  and 
none  knows  why.  But  one  may  conjecture.  Was  it  that  Charlotte 
wanted  a  certificate  to  her  understanding — from  experience — of 
Man  the  Baboon  that  she  sometimes  sketched  St.  Martin's-le-Grand 
and  the  Royal  Exchange  as  a  sort  of  ilex-groves  furnished  with 
Maenads  and  Bassarids,  all  for  the  delectation  of  respectable  Satyrs 
with  stove-pipe  hats  or  billy-cocks,  each  in  his  degree  ?  Like  Nich- 
olas Poussin,  you  know !  Yes — that  was  it !  John's  character  had 
to  be  sacrificed,  to  show  through  what  slant  or  squint  in  a  side- 
aisle  his  wife  had  got  a  glance  at  the  mystic  altar  of  the  Bona 
Dea. 

But  Marianne  was  not  prepared  to  accept  the  view  suggested. 
"  One  man's  the  same  as  another,"  said  she.  Then,  with  an  access 
of  feeling  that  she  was  being  entangled  in  something,  she  knew  not 
what,  that  she  was  not  clever  enough  to  escape  from,  "  I  wish  you 
wouldn't  talk  like  this,  Charlotte.  I  hate  it !  " 

"Talk  like  what,  dear?"  says  Charlotte,  but  adds  illogically, 


IT  NEVEE  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  307 

"  It  wasn't  me  began  talking  like  this.  It  was  you  said,  how  did  I 
know  he  answered  it  ?  I  could  only  tell  you." 

"  I  don't  care  what  who  said,  or  anyone.  It's  nothing  to  do 
with  it.  You  know  what  you're  trying  to  make  out,  so  where  is 
the  use  of  pretending?"  Mrs.  Eldridge  interjects,  "What  am  I 
trying  to  make  out?"  But  this  is  ignored,  and  Marianne  con- 
tinues, "And  you  know  you're  wrong  and  the  thing's  ridiculous." 
Through  all  this  runs  a  tacit  acceptance  of  the  existence  of  "the 
thing."  But  it  remains  undefined,  by  mutual  consent. 

At  this  point  Mrs.  Eldridge  began  to  suspect  that  Marianne  was 
showing  more  tension  of  feeling  than  the  case,  as  known  to  her, 
seemed  to  call  for.  She  must  find  out,  in  the  interests  of  the  drama 
she  wanted  to  enjoy — for,  of  course,  true  mischief-maker  that  she 
was,  she  never  admitted  that  mischief  was  her  motive — what  had 
passed  at  Tulse  Hill  to  account  for  her  friend's  acces  of  asperity. 
Because  of  course  it  was  that !  It  was  that  horrid  old  woman. 

"  I  suppose  you  talked  it  all  over  with  your  dear  mother,  Mari- 
anne?" 

"  There  wasn't  anything  to  talk  over  with  my  dear  mother  that 
I  know  of.  Yes,  I  did — I  talked  over  what  you  mean." 

"  And  she  agreed  with  me,  I'm  sure  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know  whether  she  did  or  didn't,  and  I  don't  know  what 
'  agree '  means.  But  I  do  know  that  I  won't  talk  to  mamma  again, 
neither  about  this  or  anything  else,  unless  ..." 

"Unless  what?" 

"  If  she  talks  as  she  does.     She  knows,  because  I  told  her." 

"  Don't  tell  me  about  it,  dear,  if  you  don't  like."  With  which 
licence  to  silence  Mrs.  Eldridge  settles  down  to  the  hearing  of  a 
good  long  tale,  which  she  knows  will  have  to  be  elicited  by  jerks, 
as  Marianne  is  profoundly  Anglo-Saxon — not  a  drop  of  Celtic 
blood  in  her  veins.  It  comes,  and,  summed  up,  amounts  to  this : 

Marianne  had  carefully  avoided  saying  a  single  word  at  Tulse 
Hill  about  "  it " — in  fact,  had  wanted  to  keep  Grosvenor  Square 
out  of  the  conversation  altogether.  She  had  really  only  spoken 
about  Mrs.  Steptoe's  story  and  the  photographs,  and  how  "it" 
came  in  Heaven  only  knew.  But  there  "  it "  was,  and  mamma 
had  been  very  disagreeable  about  it,  and  said  things.  What  things  ? 
Oh,  of  course  the  sort  of  things  she  always  said  .  .  .  well ! — about 
her  own  marriage  with  Titus,  and  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  busi- 
ness. Just  as  if  she,  Marianne  to  wit,  wasn't  only  poor  Kate's  half- 
sister — and  it  just  made  all  the  difference!  But  what  did  she  say? 
Well,  it  seemed  that  she  had  up  and  denounced,  in  the  most  posi- 
tive way,  about  how  she  had  always  said,  and  always  should 


308  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

say:  that  the  Blessing  of  God  could  never  rest  on  an  Unscrip- 
tural  Union.  And  then,  being  pressed  to  develope  this  thesis,  had 
fallen  back  feebly  on  the  position  that  "  we  were  told  "  it  was  Sin- 
ful, and  that  Marianne  knew  where  just  as  well  as  she  did;  which 
was  indeed  true  in  a  sense,  for  neither  of  them  knew  anything  of 
theology,  or  divinity,  or  exegesis,  except  that  the  Bible  was  the 
Word  of  God,  and  contained  everything  necessary  to  Salvation, 
as  well  as  to  the  fostering  of  all  our  little  particular  prejudices. 
In  fact,  it  would  have  been  difficult  to  light  upon  any  two  com- 
pleter  agnostics,  etymologically,  than  this  mother  and  daughter. 
So,  though  the  former  was  happily  unconscious  of  the  whereabouts 
of  any  texts  bearing  on  the  question,  she  was  convinced  of  their 
existence;  only  making  this  much  concession  to  her  daughter's 
position — that  the  marriage  of  a  man  with  a  half-sister-in-law  was 
only  half  as  bad  as  with  the  complete  article.  It  was  a  Venial 
Sin,  and  a  commodious  one  thus  far,  that  it  still  permitted  inter- 
course under  protest  between  a  daughter  who  had  committed  it  and 
a  mother  who  went  to  church. 

On  this  occasion,  when  the  admixture  of  foreign  matter  into 
the  discussion  had  raised  the  question  of  possible  nuptial  in- 
fidelities, the  old  lady  had  embittered  her  criticism  of  her  daugh- 
ter's position  by  pointing  out  that  Titus  might  do  whatever  he 
liked,  and  she  would  never  be  able  to  get  a  divorce,  like  a  legally 
married  woman.  The  knot  that  had  never  been  tied  could  never 
be  untied,  clearly;  and  one  of  the  great  advantages  of  conformity 
to  established  usage  was  hopelessly  lost.  This  view  had  fairly  en- 
raged Marianne,  who  had  fought  for  her  right  to  a  divorce  as  the 
tigress  fights  for  her  young.  Not  to  be  a  wife  at  all  according 
to  the  law  of  the  land  was  bad  enough,  but  if  you  had  to  forego  your 
birthright  to  be  a  legal  divorcee  or  divorceuse,  whatever  were  we 
coming  to? 

"  I  must  ask  John  how  that  is,"  said  John's  wife,  really  to  make 
talk,  for  she  was  at  the  moment  weighing  the  question  whether  this 
item  in  Marianne's  recent  collision  with  her  dear  mother  was 
enough  to  account  for  her  ill-temper.  "  You  would  never  suppose 
John  knew  anything  at  all,  by  his  manner;  but  it's  wonderful  what 
he  does  know.  There  he  is ! "  There  he  was,  and  there  also  was 
Mr.  Challis,  who  had  met  him  on  his  way  from  the  station,  and 
told  him  he  believed  Charlotte  was  at  the  Hermitage,  and  he  had 
better  come  in.  And  there  also  was  a  Mrs.  Parminter,  or  Westrop 
— Marianne  wasn't  sure  which — who  had  really  wanted  to  leave  a 
card  and  cease,  only  Titus  had  gone  and  asked  her  in,  and  now 
Marianne  supposed  we  should  have  to  be  civil. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  309 

Do  not  suppose  this  Mrs.  Parminter  or  Westrop  has  nothing 
to  do  with  the  story.  She  will  go  out  of  it,  certainly,  very  soon; 
because  she  has  promised  to  be  at  the  Spurrells'  at  six,  and  it 
takes  a  full  quarter  of  an  hour.  But  she  has  an  influence  on  it, 
by  the  spell  of  her  presence  acting  on  the  social  rapports  of  the 
household.  Briefly,  we  all  know  it's  quite  different  when  there  are 
people;  and  this  Mrs.  Parminter  or  Westrop  was  quite  as  much 
people,  ad  hoc,  as  if  she  had  been  the  Spurrells. 

When  there  are  people,  you  assume  a  genial  smile,  and  affect  a 
crisp  alacrity  of  interest  you  do  not  feel  in  their  loves  or  their 
sheep,  or  even  their  digestions.  You  shout;  so  do  they.  Then 
someone  else  shouts  louder,  and  you  try  to  finish  what  you  were 
shouting.  But  you  don't  succeed,  and  perhaps  you  give  in;  and 
then  your  family — lady-wife,  mother,  sister,  what  not! — says  after- 
wards, need  you  have  been  so  glum,  and  couldn't  you  have  exerted 
yourself  to  make  things  go  a  little  ?  And  you're  sorry,  because  it's 
too  late  now,  and  the  Mrs.  Parminter  or  Westrop  of  your  case,  or 
your  particular  Spurrells,  have  trooped  away  with  parting  benedic- 
tions, and  left  the  hush  of  daily  life  behind.  And  then  your  fam- 
ily lady  looks  at  the  cards  the  Mrs.  Parminter  or  Westrop  has  de- 
posited, and  sees  which  of  the  two  she  is,  and  says  she  thought  so. 

All  this  happened  in  the  present  case,  the  Mrs.  Parminter  or 
Westrop  having  swept  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Eldridge  away  in  her  vortex, 
because  they  were  going  in  the  same  direction;  and  having  said  to 
them  what  a  delightful  call  she  had  had,  and  what  delightful 
people  the  Challises  were!  To  which  Mr.  Eldridge  had  appended 
a  note  to  the  effect  that  he  had  known  Challis  quite  a  long  time, 
now  you  came  to  think  of  it.  And  the  equivocal  lady  had  said 
dear  her! — how  very  interesting! 

The  genial  wooden  smile,  as  of  the  visited,  on  the  faces  of 
Marianne  and  her  husband  died  abruptly  as  its  cause  became  a 
distant  shout.  It  gave  place  to  a  mere  puzzled  look  on  his,  pro- 
voked, no  doubt,  by  the  expression  of  cold  fatigue  on  hers  and  her 
silence.  So  far  as  he  could  recollect  there  was  nothing  to  account 
for  this — at  least,  at  the  date  of  their  last  parting.  The  interview- 
about  the  gas-man  was  unleavened  with  tenderness,  certainly,  but 
then  it  was  the  merest  household  colloquy.  But,  to  be  sure,  there 
had  been  Tulse  Hill  since  then !  That  was  it !— it  was  that  horrid 
old  woman !  So  it  was  just  as  well  to  say  nothing.  Challis  said  it, 
and  went  to  get  ready  for  dinner. 

"  Getting  ready  "  amounted  to  little  more  than  washing  his  face 
and  hands.  It  could  not  interfere  with  mental  schemes  for  ap- 
proaching and  conciliating  his  wife.  He  really  wanted  to  do  so. 


310  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

for  he  knew  in  his  inmost  heart  that  he  had  more  than  once  this 
day  turned  angrily  against  suppositions  that  would  present  them- 
selves— hypothetical  readjustments  of  his  life,  always  with  Judith 
Arkroyd  sooner  or  later  working  into  them  through  a  mist  of  the 
honour  in  which  he  held  Marianne.  Suppose — oh,  suppose! — all 
his  life  had  been  different !  Suppose  he  had  known  her  in  her  girl- 
hood, this  Judith!  He  had  let  the  image  he  had  formed  of  the 
self  he  would  have  been,  had  all  been  otherwise — just  for  one  mo- 
ment he  had  let  it  hunger  for  the  hand,  the  lips,  the  eyes  of  this 
hypothetical  girlhood.  It  seemed  so  slight  a  wrong  to  grant  him- 
self that  luxury,  when  by  hypothesis  he  was  then  never  to  have  seen 
or  spoken  to  either  of  his  wives  of  the  time  to  come.  But  the  mo- 
ment he  had  recognized  the  nature  of  this  supposition  he  had 
flung  it  from  him,  as  he  had  others  of  a  like  sort.  Just  so  the 
watcher,  sworn  not  to  sleep,  believes  himself  awake  even  as  the 
spell  seizes  him;  then  strikes  hard  to  slay  the  coming  dream,  and 
is  awake  again.  Alfred  Challis  had  been  secretly  guilty  of  this 
particular  dream,  was  angry  with  himself  for  it,  and  was  scheming 
now  to  lay  some  stress  on  his  affection  for  his  living  wife.  He 
knew  enough  from  long  experience  of  Tulse  Hill  to  ascribe  to  it 
powers  of  producing  an  even  greater  severity  of  deportment  than 
Marianne's  at  this  moment. 

He  judged  it  best  "  not  to  be  too  previous,"  and  went  from  his 
own  dressing-room  straight  to  the  drawing-room.  That  would 
make  the  best  job.  He  felt  obliged  to  John  Eldridge  for  this  ex- 
pression of  his. 

Marianne  followed  in  due  course,  and  appeared  in  conflict  with 
a  preoccupying  wrist-button.  His  proposed  arrangement  was  to 
say,  "  Well,  Polly  Anne,  now  let's  hear  all  about  it ! "  And  she 
spoiled  it  with,  "  Stop  one  moment  I  must  get  Harmood  to  do 
this  for  me." 

A  new  departure  became  necessary.  But  it  would  not  be  half 
so  degage.  A  certain  amount  of  spontaneity  would  have  to  be  sur- 
rendered. Try  again ! 

"  Got  it  right  now  ? "  Yes — that  was  best ! — not  to  go  outside 
current  event. 

"  What— the  button ?  Oh  yes,  it's  right  enough!  At  least,  it'll 
do."  And  then  dinner,  according  to  Harmood,  was  on  the  table, 
and  the  button  lapsed. 

"  Did  you  find  your  mother  well  ? "  This  followed  on  the  heels 
of  soup,  concluded.  By  this  time  Challis  had  given  up  all  his  lit- 
tle conciliations,  and  was  drifting,  a  mere  log  on  the  current  of 
matrimony.  Oh  yes! — Marianne  had  found  mamma  well — that  is, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  311 

just  as  usual.  She  wasn't  going  to  help,  evidently.  However,  he 
would  try  yet  again,  but  presently.  Presently  did  not  come,  ap- 
parently, till  cigar-time.  Then  he  made  a  more  vigorous  attempt. 
"  Well,  Polly  Anne,  I  think  you  might  ask  me  where  I've  been." 

"  Where  have  you  been  ?  "  The  amount  of  concession  there  was 
in  this  was  just  sufficient  to  make  it  impossible  to  indict  the  con- 
versation as  unendurable,  and  demand  improvement  or  silence; 
but  not  enough  to  pave  the  way  to  cordiality. 

Challis  would  probably  not  have  ventured  on  his  last  attempt  if 
he  had  had  nothing  to  report  but  his  visit  to  Grosvenor  Square. 
But  this  afternoon  excursion,  later,  had  given  him  confidence.  He 
was  able  to  answer  that  he  had  looked  in  to  tea  at  the  Ponsonby- 
Smiths',  or  whatever  the  name  was;  and  what  did  Polly  Anne 
think  ?  Celia  Ponson by- Smith  had  got  twins. 

"  Celia  Robinson,  I  suppose  you  mean,"  said  Marianne  coldly. 
"  I  saw  it  in  the  Telegraph.  Did  you  go  nowhere  else  ? " 

"  In  the  morning — yes !  I  went  for  a  book  to  the  London 
Library,  and  made  a  call.  Nowhere  else  this  afternoon." 

"I  meant  in  the  morning.  Don't  spill  your  coffee.  The  cup's 
too  full." 

"No— it's  all  right.  There!"  Challis  reduced  his  coffee  to 
safety-point,  and  was  not  ungrateful  for  the  slight  break  in  the 
conversation.  He  was  able  to  affect  a  balked  readiness  to  speak,  as 
one  whose  swallowed  coffee  has  left  him  free  to  say  the  words  it  in- 
terrupted. 

u  I  called  in  at  Grosvenor  Square." 

"I  see."  This  is  a  simple  speech  enough,  but  if  the  I  lasts  a 
long  time  and  the  8  even  longer,  it  expresses  diabolical  insight. 
Yet  one  can  say  nothing.  Challis  could  only  ignore  it,  and  con- 
tinue : 

"I  told  you  Judith  Arkroyd  had  had  an  accident.  Or  didn't 
I?"  But  he  knew  quite  well;  and  Marianne  knew  he  knew,  and 
merely  shook  her  head.  He  went  on:  "Well — she  has.  And  she 
wasn't  able  to  come  to  the  Acropolis  last  night." 

"A  bad  accident?"  Marianne  seems  determined  to  keep  her 
words  at  the  fewest. 

"  Nothing  very  serious !  A  sprained  ankle.  She'll  have  to  lay 
up  for  it.  Not  a  hanging  matter ! " 

"  Of  course  you  didn't  see  her  ? " 

"  I  did.    There  is  nothing  to  prevent  her  receiving  visitors." 

"Was  she  up?" 

"My  dear  Marianne!  Of  course  she  was  up.  What  do  you  sup- 
pose?" 


312  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  I  don't  know.  I  don't  pretend  to  understand  these  sort  of 
people.  I  suppose  it's  all  right,  either  way."  And  this  lady  then 
withdrew  from  the  conversation,  leaving  her  husband  half-nettled 
and  half-apologetic,  but  quite  unable  to  lay  hold  of  any  excuse 
for  expressing  either  irritation  or  apology.  Especially  the  latter, 
because  why  should  he  think  confessions  or  apologies  necessary  ? 

Perhaps  nothing  could  throw  more  light  on  the  way  the  heads 
of  this  household  quarrelled — for  domestic  bliss  has  many  forms — 
than  the  internal  comment  made  by  its  eldest  son  when  he  returned 
by  contract  at  half-past  ten  from  supping  with  his  friend  Tommy 
Eldridge.  What  Master  Bob  said  to  himself,  after  a  short  wait 
for  sounds  of  human  voices,  was :  "  Row  on,  I  expect.  Pater  and 
mater  not  talking ! "  He  put  his  head  in  at  the  drawing-room 
door  and  made  a  statement.  "  I  say.  I'm  not  late."  His  father, 
who  understood  Master  Bob  down  to  the  ground,  attached  the  right 
meaning  to  "What  are  you?"  which  followed.  He  looked  at  his 
watch.  "  Ten-thirty-three,"  said  he.  "  Three  minutes  late !  Now 
go  to  bed,  and  leave  the  phonograph  alone  till  to-morrow." 

"  What ! — not  only  just  one,  in  the  breakfast -room,  with  the  door 
shut?"  But  even  so  conditioned,  it  is  too  late  for  phonographs, 
and  Bob  goes  to  his  couch  a  sadder  boy  but  as  great  a  goose  as 
ever.  Before  doing  so,  he  has  to  give  securities  that  he  will  not 
pound  about  overhead  and  wake  his  sisters;  and  to  note  that  his 
pater  is  reading  and  sorting  letters,  and  his  mater  has  settled  down 
to  a  book. 

You  know  what  that  means,  especially  when  the  book  is  bicolum- 
nar,  microtypical,  and  there's  such  a  lot  to  read  before  it  gets 
to  where  everyone  says  it's  so  improper.  You  read  the  first  brisk 
spirt,  till  you  get  to  the  point  at  which  the  author's  inventive  power 
has  flagged,  and  then  you  become  strangely  content  to  repose  under- 
neath that  work,  with  your  eyes  closed  and  your  hands  peacefully 
folded  over  your  foreground.  But  Bob  was  wrong.  His  mater 
had  not  settled  down  to  her  book  in  the  true  sense  of  the  words, 
and  Challis  knew  it  by  the  speed  at  which  the  leaves  turned.  Mari- 
anne couldn't  read  at  that  rate,  even  without  stopping  to  think 
of  the  meaning.  And  you  must,  sometimes. 

Besides,  Challis  had  glanced  at  that  book  himself,  and  knew  his 
wife  would  never  understand  local  Americanisms  and  Indian 
dialects  in  Kamschatka.  It  was  an  interesting  book,  though,  and 
Challis  remembered  how  the  first  chapter  began:  "Midnight  in 
Nootka  Sound,  and  the  blood  still  dripped  monotonously  from  the 
shelf  above,  etc."  He  was  just  thinking  could  he  safely  venture  on 
asking  the  reader  why  this  first  chapter  was  called  "  Hello ! "  when 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  313 

she  put  the  book  aside,  and  said  briefly :  "  I'm  going  to  bed."  She 
had  not  spoken  a  word  since  Bob's  incursion. 

Special  effort  is  needed  to  keep  in  mind  how  little  Marianne's 
husband  knew  of  the  causes  of  her  perturbation.  So  far  as  he 
could  see,  the  whole  ground  was  covered  by  illogical  resentment 
against  a  group  of  his  friends,  whose  advances  to  herself — as  it 
seemed  to  him — she  had  inexcusably  rejected.  Still,  he  could 
frame  excuses  for  her;  it  was  not  for  her  as  it  was  for  him;  he 
had  the  key  of  the  position.  It  was  a  case  for  compromise,  and 
Marianne  was  uncompromising.  That  was  all!  As  for  any  con- 
ception that  a  new  light  thrown  on  his  past  had  presented  him  to 
her  as  distrustful  and  secretive — certainly  keeping  back  something 
she  must  have  a  right  to  know ;  possibly,  though  she  hesitated  over 
this,  something  disgraceful  to  himself — no  such  idea  crossed  his 
mind  for  a  moment. 

It  would  be  all  right  in  the  morning !  He  had  said  that  many  a 
time  overnight,  in  tiff-times,  and  peace  had  followed  as  predicted. 
Tulse  Hill,  considered  as  an  incident,  was  too  recent  for  any  sort  of 
conciliatory  effort  to  be  worth  making — to-night,  at  any  rate.  Let 
it  alone,  and  have  a  finishing  smoke !  Go  back  to  the  Ostrogoths ! 

Then,  as  he  wondered  whether,  for  all  its  slow  combustion,  the 
grate  would  not  consume  its  coal  before  he  got  through  his  cigar, 
there  came  back  to  him  an  image  of  Judith  Arkroyd  in  a  danger- 
ous form — an  image  in  which  physical  beauty  was  subordinate  to  a 
subtle  relationship  of  soul,  which  he  had  imperceptibly  slipped  into 
ascribing  to  his  own  and  hers.  A  dangerous  form,  because  Love 
played  a  new  part  in  it  for  this  man.  His  first  wife  had  probably 
been — put  it  plainly — a  mistake;  his  second  .  .  .  well! — he  was 
very  fond  of  Marianne — very — and  they  had  had  many  happy  times 
together.  But  it  wasn't  quite  the  same  thing  as — oh,  dear! — well, 
it  couldn't  be,  you  know!  One  can't  have  everything. 

Much  more  dangerous,  that  sort  of  thing,  to  our  thinking,  than 
the  primitive  fascinations  of  Aphrodite  herself!  Indeed,  we  have 
sometimes  thought  that  lady  didn't  go  the  right  way  to  work  in  that 
affair  with  Adonis.  She  should  have  sympathized  with  him.  All 
the  same,  mind  you ! — so  Cynicism  murmurs  at  our  elbow — man 
has  an  extraordinary  faculty  for  detecting  companion-souls  to  his 
own,  pulses  preordained  to  beat  in  unison  with  his,  in  bodies  of 
extraordinary  beauty,  of  indisputable  grace.  He  may  squint,  and 
his  eyesight  be  defective,  but  his  predestined  She,  the  mate  of  his 
soul,  will  gaze  on  him  through  lustrous  orbs  of  tender  radiance. 
Her  voice  will  reach  him  through  the  rosiest  of  lips,  the  pearliest  of 
teeth,  without  so  much  as  one  gold  stopping;  and  all  the  while  there 


314  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

will  he  be,  without  a  sound  tooth  in  his  head  to  boast  of,  unless  he 
has  the  effrontery  to  make  a  parade  of  his  crown-and-bridge  treat- 
ment. He  may  even  wear  a  wig,  and  brazen  it  out,  in  the  same 
breath  with  a  protest  against  a  single  false  tress  on  the  head  of  his 
other  dearer  life-in-life — this  comes  out  of  Poetry,  somewhere — 
while  as  for  a  Venus  Calva  .  .  .  simply  out  of  the  question,  thank 
you! 

Anyhow,  the  predestined  mate  of  the  soul  was  a  much  more 
kittle  head  of  cattle  to  shoe  behind  when  chosen  for  her  beauty 
from  among  the  daughters  of  an  aristocracy  not  celebrated  for 
ugliness,  and  manipulated  by  photographers  into  bestowing  their 
eyes  upon  the  readers  of  the  shiniest  print  that  ever  lay  on  the 
table  of  an  hotel  reading-room. 


CHAPTER  XXV 

OP  AN  UNCALLED  FAMILY  ROW,  AND  HOW  BOB's  BREAKFAST  WAS  POST- 
PONED.    OF  A  LETTER  FROM  JUDITH  THAT  MADE  MATTERS  WORSE 

THE  Mistake's  son  was  the  unfortunate  means  of  causing  the 
next  day  to  begin  badly.  For  he  rose  early,  and  hastened  to  the 
plague-centre  at  Putney  whence  Records  flowed,  to  acquire  in  ex- 
change for  the  condemned  piece  of  mere  music  either  "  The 
White-Eyed  Musical  Kaffir"  or  something  equally  juicy.  Natu- 
rally, he  found  the  shop  not  open,  at  an  hour  when  sparse  milk  and 
eggs  were  the  only  things  procurable.  "  Won't  open  till  ten,"  was 
the  current  opinion.  Bob,  disgusted,  called  on  his  friend  Tommy 
Eldridge,  and  found  sympathy  and  consolation.  Tommy  had  had 
the  "  Musical  Kaffir  "  for  two  days  past,  and  the  Kaffir  had  palled. 
He  would  swop  him  for  the  "  mere  music "  record  and  twopence. 
Bob  closed  with  the  offer,  but  the  bargain  had  taken  time;  and,  as 
a  consequence,  he  burst  in  upon  breakfast  at  half -past  eight  o'clock, 
and  announced  his  acquisition  with  an  evident  conviction  that  his 
hearers  had  been  awaiting  his  return  with  suspended  breaths.  His 
step-mother — or  aunt;  either  will  do — confiscated  his  treasure 
promptly,  and  denounced  Science  within  the  home-circle.  Lec- 
tures, she  said  truly,  were  one  thing;  houses  another.  Bob  cited 
the  indulgences  shown  to  other  fellows  by  their  parents  in  respect 
of  phonographs,  and  Cat  said  that  Tommy  Eldridge  always  had 
his  till  tea-time.  Her  mother  told  her  not  to  speak  with  her  mouth 
full,  and  met  Master  Bob's  half -inaudible  "I  shall  ask  the  Gov- 
ernor, anyhow ! "  with  so  harsh  an  enquiry,  "  What's  that  you're 
saying,  sir  ?  Don't  mumble  to  yourself !  "  that  Bob  evacuated  his 
position,  and  awaited  reinforcements. 

Marianne  was  making  the  common  mistake  of  easing  ill-temper 
by  attacking  objects  blameless  of  provoking  it — blowing  off  steam 
through  wrong  channels.  At  another  time  she  would  have  been  too 
lazy  to  open  a  campaign  against  a  phonograph.  Now  she  found 
it  a  relief  to  pitch  in — Bob's  phrase — and  enlarged  her  scheme  of 
operations.  "  If  it  wasn't  for  your  father,"  she  said,  "  you  would 
all  be  breakfasting  upstairs."  Bob,  who  was  afraid  of  her  because 
she  had  boxed  his  ears  for  him  before  now — and  not  so  very  long 
ago— only  muttered  a  sotto-voce  "  I'm  a  Rugby  boy  now,  and  that 

815 


316  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

would  be  grandmother,"  expressing  in  his  simple,  limited  way  his 
sense  of  acquired  status,  and  the  folly  of  ignoring  it.  Marianne, 
who  was  not  really  the  least  angry  with  Bob,  and  certainly  didn't 
care  twopence  about  the  "Musical  Kaffir,"  saw  in  this  suppressed 
defiance  an  outlet  for  her  own  high-pressure  atmosphere,  and 
jumped  at  its  inaudibility  as  though  it  were  the  head  and  front 
of  its  offending.  What  was  it  he  was  mumbling  ? — she  said  again, 
with  growing  anger.  He  wouldn't  mumble  if  his  father  was  here. 
Bob  denied  this  audibly,  probably  meaning  that  he  had  said  nothing 
he  would  have  scrupled  to  say  to  his  father.  He  felt  indignant 
and  injured;  having,  indeed,  meant  no  wrong,  though  his  pre- 
occupation about  the  glorious  phonograph  had  no  doubt  made  his 
speech  appear  careless. 

As  ill-luck  would  have  it,  Challis,  coming  down  at  this  moment 
to  breakfast,  and  not  in  a  beaming  good-humour  himself,  heard  his 
wife's  indictment,  and  quickened  his  descent  of  the  stairs.  He  re- 
solved at  once  on  his  usual  policy  whenever  Marianne  came  to  open 
warfare  with  any  of  the  family — namely,  to  take  her  part  at  the 
moment,  for  discipline's  sake,  even  supposing  he  had  to  make 
amends  for  it  after  by  concessions. 

"What  is  the  matter?"  said  he  magisterially,  in  the  pause  of 
silence  his  entry  created.  It  was  more  impressive  than  any 
amount  of  excitement,  and  the  younger  little  girl,  Emmie,  began 
to  cry  in  a  terrified  way.  Nothing  creates  the  formidable  like 
fear,  even  when  it  is  only  a  small  child's.  The  tension  became  full- 
blown, having — please  observe ! — all  grown  out  of  nothing. 

"You  must  ask  your  boy  what  he  means,  Alfred,  and  find  for 
yourself.  All  I  can  say  is,  that  if  I  am  to  be  spoken  to  so  before 
the  servants,  I  cannot  go  on." 

"  How  dare  you  speak  to  your  mother  so — eh  ?  What  do  you 
mean  by  it  ? "  Challis's  assumption  of  uncontrollable  anger  is  af- 
fectation, merely  from  motives  of  policy.  He  knows  he  can  make 
it  up  with  Bob,  any  time. 

"I  didn't."  Bob  no  more  knows  what  he  is  denying  than  his 
father  knows  what  he  has  accused  him  of.  Never  mind !  Families 
don't  quarrel  by  the  book.  Bob  is  scarlet,  for  all  that,  and  warms 
to  his  subject.  "  She  took  my  Record,  and  it  cost  a  shilling,  and 
twopence  over.  She  wanted  to  prevent  me  ..."  But  it  remains 
untold,  whatever  it  was,  for  Marianne  interrupts : 

"  You  can  hear  for  yourself  how  he  calls  me  she.  But  do  as  you 
like,  Alfred ! " — use  of  this  name  means  a  state  of  siege,  observe ! — 
"  He  is  your  boy."  After  which  disclaimer  of  a  parentage  no  one 
had  accused  her  of,  she  repeats,  "She,  indeed!"  to  rub  it  in. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  317 

Challis  at  once  perceived  that  he  must  either  sacrifice  poor  Bob 
on  the  altar  of  Peace,  or  be  entangled  in  a  hopeless  discussion  of 
rights  and  wrongs  with  Marianne;  how  hopeless,  only  experience 
such  as  his  could  know !  Action  was  necessary,  and  he  pounced  on 
Bob,  seizing  him  by  the  collar  of  his  coat.  "  How  dare  you  speak 
so  to  your  mother  ?  How  dare  you  ..."  But  stop !  He  could 
never  ask  him  how  he  dared  say  she  to  his  mother!  Even  Mari- 
anne would  suspect  him  of  making  game  of  her.  So  he  had  to 
pretend  that  his  indignation  had  overwhelmed  him.  "Don't  an- 
swer me,  sir,"  he  shouted,  shaking  the  culprit  with  a  severity 
probably  more  apparent  than  real.  "  Be  off  to  your  room  directly, 
and  stop  there !  "  And  the  child  that  was  crying  broke  into  a 
roar,  to  do  honour  to  the  way  the  scene  had  climaxed.  Bob  van- 
ished. 

The  roaring  slowed  down,  and  was  gradually  merged  in  bread- 
and-marmalade.  An  intermediate  period  of  sobs  and  bites,  over- 
lapping, was  filled  out  with  public  discomfort — an  embarrassed 
silence  in  which  Challis's  visible  vexation  was  unfairly  taken  ad- 
vantage of  by  Marianne,  to  say,  "You  can't  wonder  at  the  child, 
when  you're  so  violent."  Challis  closed  his  lips  lest  he  should 
speak ;  but  it  came  home  to  him,  in  some  mysterious  way,  that  he 
was  in  the  wrong.  Men  are;  or  if  they  are  not,  it  comes  to  the 
same  thing.  For  a  firm  conviction  in  the  mind  of  a  woman 
with  a  strong  will  and  a  proper  spirit  has  all  the  force  of  fact.  But 
Challis's  acquiescence  in  his  guilt  was  accompanied  by  a  grow- 
ing resolution  to  take  Bob  to  the  play,  coute  que  coute,  be- 
fore he  went  back  to  school  on  Monday.  He  had  no  misgivings 
about  the  boy's  breakfast.  He  knew  Harmood  might  be  relied  on, 
as  Bob  was  a  favourite  in  that  quarter.  Probably  a  compensation- 
breakfast  was  in  store  for  Bob,  later. 

It  was  a  bad  moment  for  dealing  with  a  female  correspondent 
who  is  "  always  sincerely  yours."  Had  Challis  been  confident  that 
an  unopened  letter  on  the  table  was  from  one  who  was  only  "  his 
faithfully" — though,  indeed,  Rebekah  could  not  have  been  much 
more  to  Isaac — or  even  "  his  truly,"  he  might  have  opened  it  con- 
fidently and  made  some  excuse  to  throw  it  carelessly  along  the 
table  to  his  wife  while  he  went  on  to  his  last  consignment  of  press- 
clippings.  Or  he  might  have  done  so  equally,  however  u  sincerely 
his  "  Judith  Arkroyd's  signature  said  she  was,  if  only  this  stupid 
needless  row  had  not  been  bred  by  Mrs.  Challis's  Short  Temper  out 
of  Bob's  Phonograph.  But  then,  in  addition  to  the  sincerity  with 
which  Judith  surrendered  herself  for  ever,  Challis  knew  the  letter 
would  contain  a  repeat  of  her  invitation  of  the  day  before  to  his 


318  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

wife — probably  to  accompany  him  to  Royd  at  Whitsuntide.  So  he 
postponed  opening  all  his  letters,  and  made  the  fatal  mistake  of 
hustling  them  together  as  though  he  valued  them  all  alike.  Mari- 
anne knew  better.  Had  she  not  seen  him  pause  half  a  second  over 
that  characteristic,  unmistakable  hand — a  strong  bold  upright 
script  that  seemed  to  speak  its  contempt  in  every  line  for  the 
scratchy  Italicisms  of  its  writer's  ancestors?  How  was  she  to  in- 
terpret its  being  packed  away  out  of  her  sight  in  this  way?  How- 
ever, she  wished  the  jury  in  the  court  of  her  inner  conscience  to  un- 
derstand distinctly  that  she  did  not  care  one  straw  what  Titus  did 
or  did  not  do  in  respect  of  Grosvenor  Square — but  within  well- 
defined  lines.  For,  apart  from  the  degree  to  which  she  relied  on 
the  social  safeguards  of  that  Square's  aristocratic  pride,  she  had 
about  her  husband  the  feeling  many  students  of  nature  ascribe  to 
married  folk  who  are  not  ripening  for  divorce — the  feeling  Geraint 
had  about  Enid,  according  to  Tennyson.  Marianne,  for  all  her 
tempersomeness  and  jealousy,  loved  and  reverenced  Challis  too 
much  to  dream  he  could  be  guilty  of  anything  that  would  supply 
copy  for  a  modern  novel. 

A  more  frank  nature  than  Marianne's  would  have  said  to  him 
when  he  pocketed  his  unopened  letters,  "  What ! — not  read  her  let- 
ter? Well! — I  wouldn't  write  again,  if  I  were  she! "  or  some  such 
pleasantry.  Her  obdurate  silence  provoked  him  to  say  what 
might  else  have  stopped  on  his  tongue's  tip.  It  came  just  after  the 
children  had  vanished  to  the  nursery.  "I  think,  Marianne,  con- 
sidering that  the  boy  is  going  back  to  school  on  Monday,  you  might 
have  .  .  .  Well! — you  might  have  been  a  little  easier  with 
him." 

"  I'm  sorry  he  is  going  back  to  school ;  that  is  where  he  learns 
it  all.  But  I  expected  to  be  found  fault  with." 

"  Learns  all  what  ?  What  does  he  learn  ? "  But  the  lady  simply 
bristles  with  silence  in  reply  to  this  question,  so  intensely  does  it 
call  for  no  answer.  Titus  continues,  letting  it  lapse:  "I  don't 
think  you  remember  that  it  was  I  that  gave  him  the  phonograph; 
at  least,  I  gave  him  leave  to  buy  it." 

"  I  don't  remember  anything  about  it,  and  Fm  not  going  to  try 
to.  Of  course  you  gave  it  him,  to  encourage  him  against  me. 
Very  well,  Alfred,  you  take  his  part!  Oh,  7  know! — oh  yes,  Fm 
not  his  mother.  But  I  know  what  poor  Kate  would  have  said,  if 
she  had  been  here  now."  This  was  rather  a  favourite  position  of 
Marianne's;  only  she  never  by  any  chance  filled  out  her  claim  to 
knowledge  of  what  would  have  happened  under  perfectly  incon- 
ceivable circumstances.  She  kept  details  secret. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  319 

He  thought  of  replying:  "Poor  Kate  wouldn't  be  a  fool,  any- 
how !  "  For  he  was  vexed  about  Bob.  But  he  was  ashamed  to  find 
how  Time  had  changed  the  face  of  things,  that  he  should  actually 
take  exception  to  his  own  statement  on  its  merits!  Wouldn't 
she?  He  wasn't  at  all  sure.  He  gave  it  up,  and  merely  said: 
"  We  won't  talk  any  more  about  it  now.  Where's  Bob's  Record  ? " 

This  was  unfortunate.  He  had  better  have  swept  his  letters  into 
his  pocket,  with  the  hand  that  was  waiting  to  do  it,  and  carried 
them  off  to  his  study.  Instead,  he  waited  for  the  confiscated 
Musical  Kaffir. 

"  No — Alfred — it's  no  use !  I  won't  give  it  you  if  Bob's  to  have 
it.  Horrible  noise!  Besides,  look  at  the  way  he's  been  behav- 
ing!" 

Challis  gets  visibly  angry,  or  angrier.  "You  had  much  better 
give  it  me,  Marianne,"  he  says,  reaching  out  his  hand  for  it.  But 
he  just  misses  it,  and  it  goes  into  Marianne's  pocket;  past  recov- 
ery, without  concession  on  her  part  or  physical  force  on  his.  All 
might  have  been  well  if  the  dispute  had  not  got  to  this  point. 

Things  being  thus,  nothing  remains  for  the  story  but  to  tell 
what  actually  took  place.  The  lady  persisted.  No,  she  would  not 
give  it  up!  Nothing  would  induce  her.  Appeals  on  moderate 
lines,  to  come,  to  be  reasonable,  and  so  on,  only  made  mattera 
worse — tending,  in  fact,  towards  admission  of  weakness  on  Chal- 
lis's  part.  He  became  more  irritated,  and  in  his  annoyance  at  hav- 
ing to  give  up  the  point  made  an  unfortunate  speech.  "Well — 
keep  it,  then,  if  you're  so  obstinate.  I  won't  try  to  take  it  from 
you.  But  I  tell  you  this,  Marianne :  there  are  many  husbands  that 
would."  His  only  meaning  was  to  lay  a  little  stress  on  his  own 
forbearance.  He  would  not  even  try.  But  his  speech  sounded  like 
an  assertion  of  male  power  against  female  weakness,  as  well  as  of 
legal  right. 

The  last  was  what  stung  Marianne.  Her  recent  encounter  with 
her  mother  had  thrown  doubts  on  her  right  to  a  divorce.  How 
could  they  be  reconciled  with  a  husband's  legal  right  to  confiscate 
a  White-Eyed  Musical  Kaffir,  or  any  record,  for  that  matter  ?  Her 
eyes  flashed,  and  she  bit  her  lip  as  she  turned  to  leave  the  room. 
A  laugh  that  was  no  laugh  came  of  it,  but  scarcely  speech,  to  speak 
of.  All  she  said  was,  "  Because  they  could  " — not  very  intelligibly. 
And  then  the  nurse,  Martha,  with  some  appeal  through  the  just 
opened  door,  cut  off  the  interview,  and  imposed  an  every-day 
demeanour  on  both. 

Challis  went  to  his  room  to  cool  down.  To  him  hia  wife's  last 
words  were  inexplicable,  unless  they  meant  that  his  physique  was 


320  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

not  his  strong  point,  and  that  he  might  not  have  recaptured  the 
Musical  Kaffir  so  very  easily.  But  that  did  not  seem  to  ring  quite 
true,  neither.  Never  mind! — he  had  to  look  at  his  letters.  After 
all,  it  was  not  the  first  time  Marianne  had  been  unintelligible. 

But  her  exclamation  had  no  relation  whatever  to  what  Bob  chose 
to  call  "  vim."  It  was  part  of  the  new  phase  of  thought  connecting 
her  mother's  views  about  the  legitimacy  of  her  own  marriage- 
knot  with  Challis's  suggestion  of  a  male  domination  that  others 
— not  he — might  have  legitimately  claimed.  If  she  was  not  to  be 
Titus's  lawful  wife — if  she  was  to  be  swindled  by  a  trick  of  juris- 
diction— at  least  let  her  have  the  advantages  of  her  freedom.  Let 
there  be  no  rubbish  about  a  man's  right  to  rule,  about  a  wife's 
duty  to  obey.  Keep  that  sort  of  thing  for  authenticated  mar- 
riage-lines, if  hers  were  to  be  flawed. 

It  was  the  vaguest  hint  of  an  idea — no  more!  A  gleam  not 
worth  a  thought,  except  for  what  it  grew  to. 

A  human  creature  with  an  unopened  letter  in  its  hand  is  raw 
material  for  an  Essay  on  the  Past,  Present,  and  Future.  Rather 
dangerous  things  for  a  thoughtful  scribbler  to  touch  on  rashly! 
Better  say  as  little  about  them  as  possible. 

That,  or  something  like  it,  was  Challis's  thought  as  he  stood  in 
his  writing  sanctum,  reasonlessly  hanging  fire  over  the  opening 
of  Judith  Arkroyd's  letter.  Or  was  it  that  he  wanted  time  to  settle 
down  after  the  recent  emeute?  Some  nervous  characters — like  his 
— shrink  from  a  clash  of  conditions,  a  discordance  of  consecutive 
surroundings,  and  are  prone  to  let  each  association  die  down  before 
another  takes  its  place.  Challis  wanted  to  shake  clear  of  his 
domesticities,  maybe,  before  transferring  his  thoughts  to  Judith 
and  the  invitation  to  Royd  that  he  knew  her  letter  would  repeat. 

For  whatever  reason,  he  hung  fire.  And  when  in  the  end  he 
opened  the  letter,  he  did  it  slowly.  He  took  a  broad  view  of  it; 
then  placed  it  on  the  table  while  he  lighted  a  pipe,  with  a  misgiv- 
ing that  there  was  a  flaw  in  it  that  would  prevent  his  showing  it  to 
Marianne.  When  he  picked  it  up  for  deliberate  revision,  smoke- 
encircled,  he  found  it  read  thus : 

"  DEAR  MR.  CHALLIS, 

"Speech  A.  will  suit  me  best — but  never  mind  that  if  you 
feel  like  deciding  on  the  other.  Both  enclosed  back. 

"  Remember  about  Whitsuntide.  Only  please  do  succeed  in  per- 
suading Mrs.  Challis  to  come  this  time.  Shall  I  come  and  go 
down  on  my  knees  to  her?  It  does  seem  such  a  shame  that  she 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  321 

should  keep  so  much  in  the  background.     Tell  her  she  must  come. 
I  leave  it  to  you — but  do  try ! 

"  Sincerely  yours, 

"  J.  A." 

What  the  dickens  possessed  Judith — not  Miss  Arkroyd,  please ! — 
to  use  that  unfortunate  expression,  "keep  so  much  in  the  back- 
ground"? Of  course,  Grosvenor  Square  is  the  foreground  of  the 
Universe — a  little  of  Challis's  style  as  an  author  outcropped  here — 
but  why  not  take  it  for  granted  ?  Why,  in  a  communication  that 
was  to  be  shown  to  a  fretful  porcupine,  need  Grosvenor  Square  let 
the  cat  of  its  deep-rooted  faith  in  its  position  out  of  the  bag  of  its 
good-breeding?  That  was  Challis's  metaphorical  standpoint.  But 
really  Judith  very  seldom  sinned  in  this  way;  scarcely  ever,  so 
Challis  persuaded  himself,  trespassed  on  Mr.  Elphinstone's  depart- 
ment. 

Now,  why  need  Mrs.  Challis  choose  this  exact  moment  to  remind 
her  husband  that  his  Fire  Insurance  expired  on  the  twenty-fifth, 
within  fifteen  days  of  which,  et  cetera?  Why  had  he  left  his  door 
on  the  jar,  so  that  she  should  look  in,  unannounced,  just  as  he  was 
deciding  that  it  would  never  do  to  show  her  this  letter  from  Judith  ? 
He  had  no  time  to  reflect — barely  enough  to  replace  it  in  its  en- 
velope. And  that,  after  all,  was  the  worst  thing  he  could  do. 
For  Marianne  knew  the  envelope  by  heart  already.  The  only  way 
of  accounting  for  things  of  this  sort  is  by  imputing  to  Eblis  a 
conscientious  attention  to  detail.  He  reaps  his  reward,  as  we  know, 
the  smallest  interventions  often  yielding  a  profit.  This  remark  is 
suggested  by  Challis's  decision,  after  his  wife  had  left  the  room, 
that  the  Devil  was  in  it. 

Has  all  this  incident  of  Bob's  phonograph  been  worth  recording? 
Certainly  it  has.  Because,  coming  as  it  did  on  the  top  of  Mrs. 
Steptoe's  reminiscence,  and  Mrs.  Challis's  visit  to  Tulse  Hill,  it 
blocked  explanations  by  supplying  reasons  for  the  attitude  of  that 
hill — reasons  valid  enough  to  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  Mrs.  Chal- 
lis. The  phonograph  ruction  was  an  effect,  not  a  cause  of  ill- 
temper,  and  poor  Bob  was  really  a  victim,  not  a  prime  mover  in  it. 
It  did  not  matter  much  to  him,  for  his  release  was  not  long  de- 
layed, and  reinstatement  and  compensation  folllowed  somehow.  Be- 
sides, his  father  took  him  to  hear  the  Barbiere  di  Siviglia  before 
he  went  back  to  school.  But  he  refused  to  admit  that  Melba  was 
any  better  than  her  record  would  be,  if  he  might  only  buy  it  for 
three  bob. 


322  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

By  itself  the  Steptoe  incident  might  have  been  explained.  So 
might  Challis's  correspondence  with  Judith,  or  might  never  have 
attracted  attention.  It  was  the  correlation  of  each  to  each,  and 
the  visit  to  Tulse  Hill,  with  the  subtle  touch  of  Charlotte 
Eldridge  at  critical  points,  that  provoked  the  dissension  over  the 
boy's  harmless  instrument  of  torture,  and  gave  the  Devil  his  op- 
portunity. 

Mrs.  Steptoe  had  never  recognized  the  young  man  whom  she 
remembered  as  Harris,  who,  of  course,  was  Challis  himself.  But 
the  identification  was  in  the  air — bound  to  be  made  sooner  or  later. 
Although  Mrs.  Challis  kept  silence  towards  her  husband,  she  lost 
no  time  in  recurring  to  the  subject  with  Mrs.  Steptoe.  Her  own 
penetration  had  gone  very  little  way,  but  Mrs.  Eldridge  had  not 
been  behindhand  in  finding  out  that  either  Kate  Verrall  had  been 
thrice  married,  or  that  the  second  husband  of  the  Brighton  story 
was  Challis  himself.  Charlotte  would  not  have  made  a  bad  female 
detective.  "  Don't  be  a  goose !  "  said  she  to  her  bewildered  friend. 
"  Don't  give  the  woman  any  hints.  Show  her  an  old  photograph 
of  your  husband,  and  see  if  she  doesn't  recognize  it."  Marianne 
did  so,  and  it  was  straightway  identified  as  that  young  Mr.  Harris. 
"  But,"  said  she,  "  that  is  Mr.  Challis,  before  we  were  married." 
Aunt  Stingy,  completely  taken  aback  for  a  moment,  recovered  her- 
self with  great  presence  of  mind  and  laid  claim  to  having  said 
many  things  she  never  had  said  the  first  minute  she  set  eyes  on 
Mr.  Challis.  In  a  very  little  while  she  persuaded  herself  she  had 
known  him  at  once.  But  she  could  not  be  induced  to  admit  that 
she  had  got  the  name  wrong ;  and  as  it  was  quite  unimportant  that 
she  should  do  so,  both  ladies  agreed  to  leave  her  unconvinced. 

Mrs.  Eldridge's  suggestion  was  made  at  her  own  semi-detached 
residence,  a  quarter  of  an  hour's  walk  from  the  Hermitage,  where 
she  and  Marianne  were  reviewing  the  position  some  days  after  "  it " 
occurred.  The  latter  had  been  dwelling  on  a  suggestion  of  her 
mother's,  a  very  stupid  old  woman,  that  her  husband  had  been,  and 
still  was,  ignorant  of  poor  Kate's  first  marriage. 

"Absolutely  impossible,  dear!"  said  the  authority.  "Thing 
couldn't  be  I  Besides,  she  would  have  had  to  be  twice  a  widow,  in 
suph  a  very  short  time,  if  this  young  man  Harris  wasn't  your  hus- 
band. He  must  have  been."  And  then  she  added  her  detective 
suggestion,  as  recorded,  and  the  result  removed  all  chance  of  ac- 
quittal on  this  score. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

AT  ROYD  AGAIN.  THE  BREAD  OF  IDLENESS.  A  GOOD  PLAIN  COOK.  A 
DIALOGUE  BETWEEN  A  PRIEST  AND  A  PROFANE  AUTHOR.  THE 
RECTORY  AND  ITS  GUEST,  LIZARANN.  HOW  THE  CARRIAGE  DIDN'T  STOP 

THAT  Whitsuntide  the  may-trees  were  thick  with  bloom  at  Royd 
when  Marianne  Challis  once  for  all  flatly  decided  not  to  accompany 
her  husband  there.  As  for  him,  he  couldn't  possibly  refuse  to  go 
merely  because  she  wouldn't.  And  when  you  particularly  want  to 
do  anything,  intrinsic  impossibility  to  refuse  to  do  it  is  always  wel- 
come. So  on  an  early  day  in  June  Challis  found  himself  again  on 
the  lawn  at  Royd;  not  exactly  breathing  freely  because  Marianne 
had  refused  to  join  the  party,  but  distinctly  glad  that  he  was  not 
called  on  to  speculate  as  to  what  she  would  have  said  or  done  in 
this  contingency  or  that,  or  which  of  the  guests  she  would  have 
fallen  out  with,  or  the  extent  to  which  he  would  have  been  bound 
to  try  to  lubricate  the  situation,  or  the  exact  nature  of  the  mess  he 
would  have  made  of  it.  Marianne  had  decided  the  matter,  in  spite 
of  bona  fide  efforts  on  his  part  to  reverse  her  decision.  He  had 
made  them  bona  fide,  in  the  interest  of  his  conscience  later  on. 

Anyhow,  that  was  all  settled,  and  he  could  inhale  the  aroma  of 
the  may-trees  and  the  lilacs,  and  identify  the  note  of  the  wood- 
pigeon — he  was  just  bucolic  enough  for  that — and  pretend  he  meant 
blackbird  when  he  said  nightingale,  and,  in  short,  betray  his  Cock- 
ney origin  ad  libitum,  while  basking  on  the  lawn  in  the  first  en- 
joyment of  his  escape  from  the  hoots  and  shrieks  and  petroleum- 
stench  of  town.  For  even  Wimbledon  Common  is  not  exempt. 
And  nowhere  can  the  music  and  the  silence — strange  compound ! — 
of  the  world  of  growing  trees  go  home  more  strongly  to  the  jaded 
sense  of  a  mere  town-rat  than  in  the  charmed  circle  of  a  park -girt 
home,  with  centuries  of  repose  behind  and  possible  decades  of  con- 
servation ahead.  Not  too  many,  because  that  would  savour  of  sen- 
timentalism ;  and  it  is  always  our  duty  to  be  prosaic  in  the  interests 
of  an  advancing  Civilization.  Not  too  many,  in  this  case  of  Royd, 
because  that  would  imply  too  great  a  delay  in  the  development  of 
the  wealth  of  coal  that  is  known  to  exist  below  the  beech  and 
cedar  of  the  three-mile  drive,  and  the  woods  of  ash  and  oak  the 

823 


324  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

deer  and  the  keepers  have  pretty  nearly  kept  to  themselves  since 
the  days  of  William  the  Socialist.  And  when  the  coal  comes,  what 
that  means  in  the  end  is — perhaps  more  people !  Never  mind  what 
sort!  Don't  bother! 

Don't  bother !  That  was  Alfred  Challis's  view  of  the  Universe  in 
two  words  as  he  settled  down  to  the  enjoyment  of  faultless  after- 
noon tea,  which  would  be  a  little  stronger  presently  for  those  who 
waited;  of  the  society  of  his  hostess,  the  Rector,  and  two  of  the 
previous  chits;  of  whom  one,  the  young  soldier's  idol  of  last  Sep- 
tember, was  drawling  with  sweetness,  but  without  interest,  to 
oblige.  She  was  looking  frequently  towards  the  house.  Challis 
said  to  himself  that  she  need  not  be  uneasy,  because  he  would 
come,  all  right  enough,  in  due  time.  He  knew  this,  because  they 
had  ridden  from  Euston  together,  and  talked  about  tobacco  the 
whole  way,  that  being  their  only  topic  in  common.  When  the 
young  man  appeared,  with  the  visible  benediction  on  his  head  of 
two  ivory-backed  hair-brushes  with  no  handles — which  Challis  had 
seen  when  a  dressing-case  was  opened  in  the  train  for  a  moment — 
the  young  lady  received  him  ceremoniously,  almost  distantly. 
Never  mind! — thought  the  author  to  himself — they'll  be  romping 
like  school-children  the  minute  we  oldsters  are  turned  off. 

There  was  no  one  else  yet,  of  all  a  large  house-party;  nearly 
the  same  as  in  September,  said  Lady  Arkroyd.  She  apologized 
for  this  to  Mr.  Challis,  who  replied  that  he,  too,  was  nearly  the 
same  as  in  September,  if  not  quite,  and  that  it  was  a  coincidence. 
He  hoped  his  identity  would  be  as  welcome  to  the  house-party  as 
its  would  be  to  him.  Lady  Arkroyd  smiled  acquiescence  without 
analysis.  She  remained  gracefully  on  the  surface  of  things,  con- 
fident that  all  would  go  well  below  it  in  the  hands,  for  instance, 
of  an  eminent,  if  sometimes  puzzling  novelist.  Lady  Arkroyd  had 
not  the  insight  of  Judith,  Challis  perceived.  He  indulged  a  dis- 
position to  detect  insight  in  Judith.  Oeist  in  that  quarter  made 
their  relation — not  that  they  had  any,  mind  you! — plausible  and 
warrantable. 

There  may  have  been  concession  to  some  such  relativity  in  her 
ladyship's  remark  that  Judith  would  not  be  back  till  dinner. 
Challis  fell  flat  over  it,  not  knowing  whether  he  ought  to  say, 
"  Cheer  up ! — I  can  wait,"  or  shed  tears.  Athelstan  Taylor  re- 
lieved the  position  by  saying  that  he  hoped  Miss  Arkroyd  had 
stopped  on  her  way  at  the  Rectory,  as  he  wanted  her  to  see  the 
little  girl.  Then  her  ladyship  bestowed  on  Challis,  for  a  snack, 
as  it  were,  the  odd  chit,  who  was  at  a  loose  end;  devised  her  to 
him  by  name,  and  went  back  to  a  talk  on  local  games  at  Providence 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  326 

with  the  Rector.  The  chit's  name,  however  improbable  it  may 
seem,  was  Lady  Henrietta  Mounttullibardine,  and  she  did  not  look 
as  if  she  could  live  up  to  it.  She  coloured  at  intervals,  and 
seemed  hushed.  Challis  distinctly  saw  her  want  to  say  something 
several  times,  and  give  it  up.  He  encouraged  her  tenderly,  and 
in  time  she  confessed  that  she  really  wanted  to  know  whether  it  was 
Pepperstraw,  in  Challis's  last  novel,  that  hit  upon  the  idea  of 
using  digitalis,  or  Bessie.  He  told  her,  and  she  retired  on  her 
information,  in  awe  at  having  spoken  to  a  live  author.  Challis 
could  listen  undisturbed  to  the  conversation  of  the  Parson  and 
their  hostess. 

"  There  is  something  very  engaging  about  the  child,"  said  the 
latter.  "  Of  course,  she  has  that  defect.  The  mouth  is  too  large 
for  beauty.  But  she  cossets  up  to  you  nicely,  and  opens  her  eyes 
wide.  The  eyes  are  fine  in  themselves,  and  remind  me  of  ... 
oh  dear! — what  was  that  girl's  name,  now,  in  Somersetshire?  I 
can't  recollect  the  least."  Athelstan  Taylor  felt  helpless,  and  was 
wondering  if  it  would  be  legitimate  to  say  never  mind,  when  her 
ladyship  decided  that  it  didn't  matter,  and  continued :  "  Sir 
Murgatroyd  is  quite  of  our  opinion,  that  it  would  never  do  to  let 
the  child  lapse." 

"  Never  do  at  all !  "  said  the  Rector.  "  Indeed,  even  if  the  child 
were  not  there,*  I  should  be  very  reluctant  to  lose  sight  of  the 
father.  I  suspect,  too,  that  the  people  at  the  cottage — where  I  put 
him  to  stay,  you  know — wouldn't  thank  me  for  taking  him  away. 
It's  very  curious  to  me  how  a  man  with  such  qualifications  for  be- 
ing an  encumbrance  can  manage  to  make  himself  welcome  at  all. 
But  he's  become  very  popular  there,  especially  with  old  Margy. 
She  says  it's  like  a  clock  to  hear  him  tell.  I  think  she  means 
that  he  goes  on  chatting  in  a  pleasant,  easy  kind  of  way.  Sea 
stories,  you  know — that  sort  of  thing !  " 

"  Didn't  you  say  he  was  inclined  to  give  trouble  ? — they  are 
troublesome  sometimes."  She  referred,  no  doubt,  to  the  in- 
transigeant  pauper  population,  and  their  natural  love  of  independ- 
ence combined  with  outdoor  relief. 

"I  didn't  mean  exactly  troublesome  in  that  sense.  Trouble- 
somely  averse  to  giving  trouble,  perhaps  I  should  have  said.  He 
never  said  anything  to  me,  but  old  Margy  is  in  his  confidence. 
It  seems  that  that  sister  of  his — the  Steptoe  woman,  you  know? 
...  oh  yes ! — you  know — the  woman  whose  husband  was  drowned 
in  the  lock — the  delirium  tremens  man  ..." 

"  Delirium  iremens  man  ? "  said  her  ladyship  dimly.  And  then 
suddenly,  "Oh  yes,  I  know,  of  course,"  almost  in  one  word. 


326  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Challis  listened  with  stimulated  attention,  and  Mr.  Taylor  con- 
tinued : 

"Well! — she's  Jim  Coupland's  sister,  you  see — and  it  seems 
that  she  used  to  twit  him  with  eating  the  bread  of  idleness  before 
he  took  to  the  retail  match-trade.  He  considers  that  he  is  eating 
the  bread  of  idleness  now.  Perhaps  he  is.  But  he  is  submitting, 
until  he  is  strong  on  his  legs  again — that's  his  expression.  Besides, 
we  have  made  a  composition,  and  half  his  keep  is  to  be  deducted 
from  his  savings.  By-the-bye  ..."  The  Rector  paused,  with 
recollection  on  his  face. 

Lady  Arkroyd's  speech  is  apt  to  have  a  superseding  character — 
to  pass  by  lesser  folks'  unimportant  remarks.  "  I  liked  the  father 
at  the  Hospital,"  she  says  indifferently.  "I  hope  the  child  isn't 
going  to  be  delicate."  Mr.  Taylor  was  arrested  long  enough  to  say, 
oh  dear  no ! — oh  no,  it  was  or  would  be  all  right  as  far  as  that  went 
— and  then  left  it,  whatever  it  was,  to  finish  his  own  beginning. 

"  I  was  just  going  to  say  what  an  odd  chance  it  was  that  Mr. 
Challis's  housekeeping  should  have  absorbed  Mrs.  Step  toe.  How 
does  the  woman  answer,  Challis?"  For,  as  we  have  heard,  these 
two  gentlemen  had  become  fairly  well  acquainted  last  September, 
in  spite  of  the  cloth  of  the  one  and  the  predisposition  of  the  other 
— a  better  word  for  the  case  than  "  antipathies,"  which  had  almost 
crept  into  the  text.  One  or  two  country-walk  chats  had  ended  in 
Challis  giving  the  Rev.  Athelstan  practical  absolution  for  his  black 
stock  and  silk  waistcoat,  and  the  latter  reflecting  much  on  the 
figments  of  mediaeval  creed  and  formulary  that  make  a  gulf  be- 
tween so  many  intellects  with  concord  at  the  root,  and  play  into  the 
hands  of  their  common  enemy,  the  Devil.  Why  was  he  glad  that 
his  friend  Gus  was  safe  in  London  dabbling  in  incense,  coquetting 
with  Holy  Water,  preaching  Immaculate  Conceptions,  and  not  let- 
ting his  left  hand  know  that  his  right  hand  had  renounced  the 
Bishop  of  Rome — when  a  visitor  like  Challis  might  accrue  at  any 
moment  at  Royd  Rectory,  as  per  promise  given  eight  months  ago? 
Why  ? — simply  because  he  felt  that  the  bridge  of  his  own  liberality, 
however  long  the  span  of  it,  was  not  enough  to  cover  the  great 
gulf!  And  there  was  Ahriman,  chuckling  all  the  while  I 

"I  am  given  to  understand  that  Mrs.  Steptoe  is  a  good  plain 
cook,"  was  Challis's  answer  to  the  Rector's  question.  Something  in 
the  manner  of  it  seemed  to  throw  doubt  on  his  good  faith.  Other- 
wise, why  seek  confirmatory  evidence,  as  his  hearers  seemed  to  do  ? 

"I  suppose  you  dine  at  home?"  said  the  Rector,  going  to  the 
point. 

"  I  don't  judge  so  much  by  that.    It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  do  so, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  327 

because  I  gather  that  in  our  house  the  flues  don't  act,  and  the  best 
kitchen-coal  at  twenty  shillings  has  no  burn  in  it,  and  goes  to 
cender  in  no  time.  Also  we  have  no  saucepans  the  right  size. 
Also  our  greengrocer  supplies  us  with  potatoes  which  on  peeling 
turn  out  irregular  polyhedrons.  So  it  doesn't  do  to  be  biassed  by 
what  we  get  to  eat.  But  I  am  convinced  she  is  a  good  plain  cook." 

Lady  Arkroyd  was  accepting  all  Challis  said  in  the  spirit  of 
Bradshaw.  A  territorial  lady  knows  nothing  of  the  small  do- 
mesticities of  any  middle  class.  The  Rector,  perceiving  a  danger 
ahead — a  new-born  interest  in  the  peculiar  potatoes  obtaining  in 
suburban  villas — headed  Lady  Arkroyd  off  just  as  she  had  be- 
gun, "  What  very  curious  pota  .  .  . !  "  without  a  smile. 

"  Challis  isn't  in  earnest,"  said  he.  "  It's  only  his  chaff."  Her 
ladyship  said,  "  Oh !  "  and  looked  puzzled — awaited  enlightenment. 
Challis  laughed,  admitting  jurisdiction.  But  he  pleaded  in  ex- 
tenuation of  his  offence  that  it  was  difficult  to  fight  against  the 
conviction  that  Mrs.  Steptoe  was  a  good  plain  cook — whatever 
direct  evidence  there  was  to  the  contrary — in  the  face  of  her  apron 
and  the  material  of  her  dress,  her  punctual  attendance  at  chapel, 
her  handwriting  and  its  blots,  her  arithmetic  and  its  totals.  She 
really  had  all  the  qualities  of  a  good  plain  cook,  except  the  bald  and 
crude  ability  to  do  plain  cookery — a  thing  no  one  who  looks  below 
the  surface  ever  bothers  over. 

"  I'm  afraid  the  good  woman's  a  bit  of  a  humbug,"  was  Athelstan 
Taylor's  conclusion.  It  was  welcomed  by  the  lady,  as  a  relief 
to  the  necessity  for  smiling  in  a  well-bred  way — a  Debretticent  way, 
call  it — while  queer  arrivals  from  below  uttered  paradoxes  on 
Olympus. 

Judith  might  be  late;  she  was  at  Thanes.  Challis  pretended  he 
hadn't  known  this.  But  he  knew  well  enough  that  the  young  lady 
had  forgiven  the  Castle,  because  they  were  going  to  have 
theatricals;  and  she,  with  an  imputed  experience,  had  been  peti- 
tioned to  accept  the  principal  part.  All  this  was  in  her  last  letter, 
written  to  Challis  at  his  club.  It  had  also  told  him  that  William 
Rufus,  her  brother,  would  not  be  at  Royd  for  a  few  days,  as  he  was 
busy  in  town  over  the  Great  Idea,  which  was  going  to  be  a  very 
great  Idea  indeed,  as  some  men  had  come  forward  and  were  going 
to  put  a  good  deal  of  Capital  into  it.  Challis  had  said,  " Dear  me! 
— how  like!  ..."  and  had  not  finished  the  sentence. 

A  little  thing  occurred  that  amused  the  novelmonger's  heart  and 
stirred  his  sympathies.  When  he  began  talking  with  his  hostess 
and  the  Rector,  he  had  turned  his  back  on  the  chit  and  the  young 
soldier.  When,  as  the  Rector's  departure  provoked  dispersal,  he 


328  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

looked  their  way  again — behold! — they  had  vanished,  as  by  magic. 
"  I  think,"  said  the  second  chit,  "  they  have  gone  for  a  walk  to 
Fern  Hollow."  And  thenceforward  there  was  a  consciousness 
about  this  young  couple  and  their  destiny  between  Mr.  Challis  and 
the  second  chit.  For  had  she  not  detected  his  thought  about 
them,  when  his  eyes  looked  for  them  and  found  them  not? 

The  other  visitors,  some  of  whom  were  as  identical  with  those 
of  September  as  circumstance  permits  in  such  a  case,  were  scat- 
tered about  elsewhere,  subject  to  well-grounded  confidences  that 
they  would  be  back  to  dinner.  And  the  only  important  variation 
of  identity  among  these  was  that  one  had  become  a  Confirmed 
Christian  Scientist.  Challis  didn't  know  whether  he  was  ex- 
pected to  be  glad  or  sorry. 

He  became  somehow  aware  that  her  ladyship  was  going  to  drive 
to  Thanes  Castle  accompanied  by  the  second  chit,  to  bring  Judith 
back.  Also  that  he  was  not  going  to  be  asked  to  accompany  her. 
"  What  is  Mr.  Challis  going  to  do  if  we  all  forsake  him  ? "  spoken 
with  a  sweet  smile,  left  no  doubt  on  the  point.  Mr.  Challis  had 
a  letter  he  must  write;  so  that  was  settled. 

"  You  haven't  got  a  letter  to  write,  Challis,"  said  the  Rector  at 
the  front  gate,  to  which  both  had  walked  in  company.  "  Come  some 
of  the  way  with  me,  and  talk  as  profanely  as  you  like.  I  won't 
go  fast."  For  the  resolute  stride  of  a  pedestrian  had  made  Challis 
cry  for  mercy  in  September. 

"  Yes — it  was  a  lie  about  the  letter,"  said  he.  "  But  it  was 
good  and  unselfish  in  me  to  tell  it.  Saved  bother,  in  fact!  Can 
you  wait  two  minutes  while  I  put  on  walking-boots  ?  " 

"  I  can  wait  five,  luckily ;  which  I  take  it  is  your  meaning."  He 
waited  six,  beguiling  them  by  letting  the  gate  swing  to  and  fro, 
and  noting  what  a  long  time  it  took  to  reach  equilibrium.  "  Wait 
a  second,"  said  he  to  Challis,  arriving  booted  at  the  end  of  the 
fourth  experiment.  "  Let's  see  how  long  it  means  to  go  on ! " 
And  then,  having  settled  the  point,  the  two  were  walking  along 
the  great  avenue  through  the  murmur  of  the  beeches,  conscious  of  a 
dispute  between  the  woodlands  and  the  hay-fields  as  to  which  was 
adding  the  sweeter  flavour  to  the  air  of  heaven. 

Neither  spoke  at  first.  Then  Challis  said,  as  though  still  think- 
ing over  recent  words :  "  Why  '  as  profanely  as  I  liked '  ?  I  am  a 
Profane  Author,  certainly,  in  the  old  sense  of  the  word.  Was  that 
what  you  meant  ?  " 

"  Why — yes !  That  is,  if  that  was  the  sense  you  used  the  word 
in  the  last  time  we  talked  together,  in  September.  Do  you  re- 
member? You  said  you  always  had  diabolical  promptings  towards 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  329 

profanity  in  the  presence  of  anything  sacred.  Then  you  said  my 
cloth  was  conventionally  sacred,  and  that  made  matters  worse." 

"I  remember.  We  were  getting  very  candid.  You  said  you 
liked  it." 

"  So  I  did.  I  said  what  I  said  just  now  because  I  wanted  to  go 
on  where  we  left  off.  We  were  just  going  to  quarrel  healthily 
when  Mr.  Brownrigg  pointed  out  that  in  the  millennium  of  Grau- 
bosch  the  impious  man  would  have  no  cause  for  despondency.  The 
class  of  Insulated  Ideas,  evolved  from  the  theory  of  Metaphysical 
Checks,  will  at  once  provide  the  Dogmatist  with  materials,  and  the 
Blasphemer  with  an  object  to  give  his  attention  to.  ..." 

"  I  remember.  If  I  belonged  to  the  latter  class,  I  shouldn't  be  a 
Grauboschite.  Too  much  like  Temperance  Drinks,  that  make  you 
feel  as  if  you  were  drunk.  ..."  Challis  arrested  his  own  speech, 
as  if  he  had  had  enough  of  triviality,  and  spoke  seriously.  "  I 
want  you  to  tell  me  something,  without  any  reserve." 

"  Go  on.    I  will,  if  I  can." 

"  You  read  one  of  my  books,  I  know  .  .  .  what ! — two  more 
since  September! — fancy  that!  .  .  .  Well — what  was  your  im- 
pression? As  to  what  we  are  speaking  of,  I  mean.  Did  it  strike 
you  that  I  made  light  of  subjects  usually  held  sacred  ? " 

"It  struck  me  that  you  did  not  hold  them  sacred.  I  do  not 
mean  a  syllable  more  than  I  say.  Your  writing,  so  far  as  I  have 
read  it,  is  negative." 

"  I  have  wished  to  keep  it  so.  Why  should  any  author  try  to 
disturb  or  unsettle  beliefs  that  he  cannot  replace — even  by  a  Meta- 
physical Check?  You  remember  what  I  said  to  you  last  year, 
just  the  other  side  of  where  the  brook  runs  across  the  road  on  its 
own  account,  by  the  little  footbridge?  .  .  .  well! — it  was  quite 
true.  I  have  no  antipathy  to  any  beliefs  of  other  people,  having 
none  of  my  own.  I  merely  take  exception  to  the  recitation  of 
Creeds." 

"  Even  when  the  reciter  is  free  to  choose  silence." 

"  If  he  stands  up  it  comes  to  the  same  thing." 

"He   needn't  unless   he   likes.    At  least,   in   my  Church." 

"  Then  suppose  he  does  believe  some  of  it,  is  he  to  jump  up  and 
down  ?  There  must  be  what  my  Bob  calls  a  good  few  persons  who 
believe  the  first  seven  and  the  last  four  words  of  the  Creed  .  .  . 
well! — the  regular  Creed — you  know  which  one  I  mean  .  .  .  and 
you  could  hardly  expect  them  to  sit  still  all  through  the  business 
part  of  the  recitation  and  cut  in  at  the  end." 

"You're  only  half  serious,  Challis.  Your  inveterate  propensity 
to  quips  of  thought  and  paradox,  as  it  is  called,  misleads  you  and 


330  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

spoils  your  talk.  Surely  a  declaration  of  faith  is  an  intrinsic 
necessity  in  a  communion !  How  can  it  exist  otherwise  ? " 

"  You  must  keep  the  disbelievers  out — is  that  it  ? "  Challis 
thought  it  time  for  a  cigar.  When  he  had  got  it  lighted,  he 
resumed :  "  Yes ! — as  a  means  of  constructing  communions,  Creeds 
are  invaluable.  The  communion  that  had  none  would  be  too  big. 
As  for  me,  I  never  can  help  thinking  of  those  lines : 

"  '  One   all  too  sure  of  God  to  need 
That  token  to  the  world  without 
Of  homage  paid  by  faith  to  doubt, 
The  recitation  of  a  Creed.' 

.  .  .  Where  do  they  come  from,  did  you  say?  'In  Memoriam,' 
I  suppose." 

"  Can't  recollect  them !  .  .  .  I  wish  you  would  tell  me  what 
you  understand  by  the  word  '  believe. ' ' 

"  I'm  very  doubtful.  It  just  depends  on  how  I  use  it.  When  I 
tell  my  wife  that  I  believe  her  letter  has  gone  to  the  Post,  my  mean- 
ing is  clear.  I  mean  that  I  didn't  see  it  on  the  hall-table  when  I 
last  looked.  When  I  say  that  I  believe  I  am  engaged  on  Thursday, 
it  is  equally  unmistakable.  I  mean  that  I  don't  want  to  meet  the 
So-and-so's  at  your  house,  morning-dress.  But  when  I  say,  as  I  am 
apt  to  do,  that  I  believe  in  God  Almighty,  I  do  so  with  a  misgiving 
that  my  meaning  is  not  intelligible  to  myself.  Perhaps  I  regard 
my  speech  as  a  civility  to  the  absolutely  Unknown — I  really  couldn't 
say.  Or  it  may  be  I  only  use  it  in  fulfilment  of  a  convention 
which,  so  long  as  I  comply  with  its  conditions,  binds  all  the  other 
signatories  not  to  bother." 

"You  always  make  me  think  you  are  going  to  be  serious,  and 
then  you  go  off  at  a  tangent.  I  never  have  any  doubt  what  I  mean 
by  the  word  ..." 

"What,  for  instance?" 

"  Whatever  my  mind  does  not  question,  I  believe." 

"  Then  the  Creed  might  be  reworded,  '  I  don't  and  won't  ques- 
tion the  existence  of  God  the  Father,'  and  so  on.  Somehow  it 
doesn't  sound  convincing." 

"  Because  it  seems  to  imply  that  the  question  is  an  open  one." 

"And  saying  you  believe  it  doesn't?  I'm  agreeable,  if  you're 
satisfied.  But,  then,  you  see,  I  stop  away  from  Church,  by 
hypothesis.  And  I  should  do  so  just  the  same  if  the  re-wording 
were  made.  Nokes  and  Stokes  and  Styles  and  Brown  and 
Thompson  in  a  row,  shouting  that  they  didn't  and  wouldn't  ques- 
tion the  existence  of  God  Almighty,  would  keep  me  out  just  a9 
much  as  if  they  said  they  *  believed '  in  Him." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  331 

They  walked  on  a  little  in  silence,  the  Rector  very  thoughtful. 
Presently  he  said,  rather  as  one  who  comes  to  a  sudden  conclusion : 
"  My  definition  of  the  word  doesn't  cover  it.  One  means 
more  ..." 

"  And  doesn't  exactly  know  what,"  said  Challis. 

"  Precisely.  But  isn't  it  possible  that  the  common  use  of  a  word 
long  received  among  many  people  may,  from  the  habit  of  its 
usage,  acquire  a  meaning  to  each  and  all  alike,  and  yet  continue  to 
baffle  definition?" 

"  Very  possible  indeed,  and  certain.  I  know  a  case  in  point.  I 
went  to  a  sort  of  spiritualistic  seance  once,  and  in  the  course  of 
operations  the  audience  was  requested  to  will  powerfully.  To  my 
surprise,  all  the  habitues  seemed  prepared  to  comply  as  a  matter  of 
course.  One  young  man  said, '  How  ? '  but  was  sat  upon  by  public 
opinion.  I  heard  him  after  ask  a  friend,  'How  did  you  will'? 
And  the  reply  was :  '  I  held  my  breath  and  caught  firmly  hold  of 
f our-and-sixpence  in  my  breeches  pocket.  How  did  you  ? '  He  an- 
swered that  he  had  shut  his  eyes  tight  and  thought  of  his  toes.  But 
all  the  faithful — these  two  were  outsiders,  like  myself — seemed  to 
know  what  to  do ;  and  did  it  right,  I  suppose,  because  an  accordion 
played.  They  had  found  out  what  willing  meant,  by  habit  and 
telepathic  interchange.  Probably  believers  know  in  the  same  way 
what  is  meant  by  belief.  But  it's  no  use  outsiders  holding  their 
breath  and  thinking  of  their  toes." 

This  sort  of  chat  continued  till  the  two  reached  the  Rectory.  It 
is  given  in  the  story  to  throw  light  on  the  friendship  that  sprang 
up  between  two  such  opposites,  or  seeming  opposites. 

When  one  walks  part  of  the  way  home  with  a  friend,  Euclid's 
axioms  get  flawed  sometimes,  for  the  whole  of  the  way  is  no 
greater  than  its  part.  Challis  went  all  the  way  to  the  Rectory,  of 
course;  said  he  wouldn't  come  in,  of  course;  said  he  mustn't  sit 
down,  of  course;  did  so,  of  course;  and  kept  his  eye  on  his  watch, 
of  course.  Having  complied  with  all  forms  and  precedents,  he 
started  to  walk  back. 

His  short  visit  had  given  him  odds  and  ends  of  human  things  to 
think  of.  That  was  the  Rector's  sister-in-law,  that  dry  lady  who 
had  made  him  feel  tolerated;  and  that  other  one  who  had  begged 
him  not  to  throw  his  cigar  away  was  only  an  old  friend.  Challis 
was  sorry  the  reverse  was  not  the  case,  for  the  Rector's  sake.  He 
felt  that  the  old  friend  might  be  kissed  with  advantage  to  the  kisser, 
while  the  officially  permissible  peck  of  the  dry  lady's  cheek  could 
not  be  a  source  of  satisfaction  to  any  connoisseur.  It  was  a 
thought  entirely  on  his  friend's  behalf — he  himself  was  indifferent. 


332  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

However,  he  might  be  wrong.  The  dry  lady  seemed  very  congenial 
to  the  two  little  girls,  her  nieces,  who,  it  appeared — hurriedly,  for 
his  visit  was  short — had  engaged  a  nurse  for  their  baby.  Challis 
suspected  that  a  dispute  between  the  two  children,  which  the  dry 
lady  peremptorily  silenced,  turned  on  a  question  of  paternity.  Which 
of  them  was  to  be  the  baby's  papa?  It  seemed  late  in  the  day  for 
considering  the  point,  thought  Challis.  The  oldest  sister  was  al- 
ways the  papa,  said  that  claimant;  and  confirmed  it  by  adding, 
"  Eliza  Ann  says  so,  and  she  knows."  The  colloquy  was  half -heard, 
but  this  seemed  the  upshot. 

That  little  Eliza  Ann  in  the  blue  cotton  dress — the  nurse  in  this 
drama — was,  of  course,  the  little  girl  whose  mouth  was  too  large 
for  beauty;  Mrs.  Steptoe's  brother's  child.  How  small  the  world 
was !  "  So  is  the  kid  herself,  for  that  matter,"  was  Challis's  re- 
flection thereon;  a  typical  instance  of  the  whimsical  way  his  mind 
twisted  things.  He  would  have  said  it  aloud  with  perfect  gravity 
to  any  hearer,  had  he  had  one. 

She  was  a  nice  little  wench,  anyhow,  the  nurse,  with  her  great 
big  eyes  and  her  Cockney-up-to-date  accent.  Also  Challis  had 
noted  her  quickness  in  repeating  words  just  heard.  "  The  biby  is 
on  no  attount  to  be  wyked,"  she  had  said,  with  an  earnest  sense  of 
the  reality  of  her  part.  "0  si  sic  omnes!"  Challis  had  thought  to 
himself. 

But  the  nurse  forgot  herself  the  moment  after,  saying :  "  I  must 
sow  this  biby  to  my  daddy,  tomollow — maten't  I  ?  "  However,  she 
resumed  her  part  at  once,  on  assurance  given.  She  was  certainly 
to  show  that  baby  to  her  daddy.  And  he  would  feel  it,  and  see  how 
fat  it  was.  Thereon  Challis  had  remembered  what  had  till  then 
escaped  his  mind,  that  Mrs.  Steptoe's  brother  was  eyeless  and  half 
legless.  Oh,  what  an  indurated  baby,  for  an  appreciator  dependent 
on  touch  alone!  And,  oh,  the  stony  glare  of  its  eyes  fixed  on  the 
zenith,  when  roused  from  sleep  by  a  practicable  wire  in  its  spine ! 

A  man  with  a  permanent  source  of  disquiet  always  lights  on 
something  to  remind  him  of  it,  go  where  he  may.  Challis  had 
succeeded  on  his  way  from  London  in  persuading  himself  that 
the  warmth  of  his  own  farewell  to  Marianne  had  been  more  than 
skin-deep,  whatever  hers  was;  and  had  felt  that  he  could  justifiably 
stand  his  own  self-reproaches  over,  and  enjoy  the  day  that  was 
passing,  without  remorse.  And  then  what  must  he  needs  come 
across,  of  all  things  in  the  world,  but  a  sister-in-law!  Not  one 
certainly  resembling  in  the  least  the  sister-in-law  of  a  decade 
past,  whom  she  reminded  him  of!  There  was  nothing  in  this  one 
of  the  girl  who  then,  in  the  language  of  Oliver,  bestowed  herself 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  333 

like  a  ripe  sister,  and  was  accepted  with  a  sense  that  she  more 
than  made  up  for  a  too  mature  mother-in-law,  and  put  the  ad- 
vantages of  marriage  outside  all  question.  Nothing  of  Marianne 
then  or  now,  for  that  matter,  in  the  dry  lady  personally;  but  much 
to  remind  him  of  his  own  case  in  the  way  she  had  taken  over  the 
two  little  girls,  much  as  Marianne  had  taken  over  Bob. 

Was  it  his  fault — the  whole  thing?  For  there  was  a  "whole 
thing"  by  now.  He  could  not  disguise  that  whole  thing  from 
himself,  and  that  it  was  a  thing  that  had  somehow  grown,  slowly 
and  surely,  since  the  first  days  when  he  and  Marianne  were  re- 
joicing together  in  the  dark  front  parlour  of  the  Great  Coram 
Street  house  over  a  letter  just  come  from  the  publishers,  Saxby's, 
Ltd.,  which  accepted  "  The  Spendthrift's  Legacy,"  and  named 
terms  which  led  to  a  calculation  that  success,  followed  by  a  book 
per  annum  equally  successful,  would  yield  two  thousand  a  year; 
and  to  castles  in  Spain,  the  building  of  which  would  have  cost  that 
sum  twice  over. 

Or,  if  not  from  that  hour  exactly,  it  had  grown  since  the  days 
of  the  success  that  followed.  It  was  hard  to  say  when  it  began. 
Was  he  aware  of  it — of  "the  whole  thing" — when  Marianne  re- 
fused to  go  with  him  to  Lady  Horse's  because  the  Honourable 
Mrs.  Diamonds  had  been  rude  to  her  first,  and  encouraged  her 
after?  These  were  not  the  ladies'  real  names,  but  everything  else 
held  good.  Marianne  had  then  said  that  once  was  quite  enough, 
and  she  knew  all  along  exactly  how  it  was  going  to  be,  ever  since 
that  woman  in  skirts  had  given  herself  such  airs — a  reference  to  a 
previous  delinquent.  Oh  dear ! — now  suppose  the  Honourable  Dia- 
monds had  not  "encouraged"  her — how  then?  Anyhow,  Challis 
could  see  now,  too  late,  what  he  ought  to  have  done.  He  ought  to 
have  taken  bulls  by  the  horns,  and  bits  in  his  teeth,  and  oppor- 
tunities by  their  forelocks,  and  said  flatly  that  he  wouldn't  go  to 
Lady  Horse's  unless  Marianne  came,  too.  It  was  his  going  that 
once  without  her  that  had  done  it!  And  all  because  of  the  con- 
founded good-nature  of  that  diamond  woman,  who  must  needs  go 
encouraging  her.  That  was  what  hurt  the  most,  a  thousandfold. 
The  Diamonds  might  have  stood  on  Marianne's  lilac  silk  all  day 
long,  and  broken  that  little  crickly  man's  arm  with  her  fan,  if  she 
chose,  and  her  victim  would  have  forgiven  it.  But  when  she  came 
off,  she  scarcely  apologized.  And  then,  after  that,  to  encourage 
her! 

Still,  in  those  days  he  was  not  aware  of  "the  whole  thing" 
that  had  "  come  about."  Suspicion  that  something  was  amiss  was 
followed  by  belief  that  the  something  had  melted  away.  Intermit- 


334  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tent  phases  succeeded,  now  and  then  with  an  appearance  of  con- 
cession to  Society  on  Marianne's  part;  occasional  acceptances  of 
invitations  to  houses  where  Challis  innocently  hoped  all  had  gone 
well,  till  he  found  himself  driving  home  with  a  hurt  and  silent  lady, 
and  came  to  know  that  the  very  things  he  had  fondly  fancied  al- 
most angelic  ebullitions  of  sweetness  in  their  hostess  were  really 
only  the  woman's  impertinence ;  and  that  what  seemed  to  him  good- 
humoured  informality  in  her  daughters  was  nothing  but  that  sort 
of  hoydenishness  that  seemed  to  be  thought  the  proper  thing  now- 
adays. He  could  recall  many  incidents  of  this  description,  yet  none 
that  seemed  to  warrant  the  evolution  of  married  discomfort — of 
disintegrated  family  life — that  kept  on  gaining  slowly,  slowly  on 
his  resistance  to  it. 

It  had  intensified,  he  knew,  since  his  first  visit  to  Royd  in  Sep- 
tember. It  was  mixed  up  with  his  professional  association  with 
Judith  Arkroyd.  It  was  a  professional  relation,  and  nothing  else. 
He  called  the  ancestral  beeches  of  the  family  to  bear  witness  to  the 
utter  impossibility  of  its  being  anything  else.  If  he,  Alfred 
Challis,  ex-accountant,  ephemeral  scribbler  of  an  empty  day,  was 
conscious  of  a  certain  warmth  in  his  admiration  for  that  lady, 
that  was  his  concern — not  even  the  business  of  the  beech-trees,  or 
the  new  young  fern  he  was  treading  underfoot.  It  would  remain 
a  buried  secret,  unknown  to  all  men,  most  of  all  to  Judith  herself. 
He  would  even,  as  an  act  of  discipline,  never  think  of  it  but  to 
question  its  reality,  as  he  did  now.  It  was  to  die,  and  should  do  so. 
At  least  he  could  keep  his  own  counsel  about  this  soul-quake,  heart- 
quake,  self -quake — call  it  what  you  will! — admitting  that  one  ex- 
isted. If  he  failed  to  do  so  successfully,  would  he  be  the  first 
man  that  had  ever  loved  two  women,  and  been  forced  to  hide  away 
his  love  for  one  from  the  other  and  herself?  But  he  was  obliged 
to  admit  that  this  was  the  first  time  he  had  allowed  the  word 
"  love  "  to  be  heard  in  his  intercourse  with  himself  on  this  subject, 
even  as  an  hypothesis. 

He  was  relieved  to  observe  the  pleasure  he  felt  in  the  thought 
that,  at  any  rate,  Polly  Anne  need  never  know  anything  about  it. 
She  need  never  have  any  real  cause  for  a  moment's  disquiet.  Of 
course,  any  groundless  suspicions  she  might  choose  to  nourish  were 
entirely  her  own  look-out.  He  could  only  recognize  those  that  had 
a  warrant  in  reality.  She  should  not  be  provided  with  materials 
for  any  such.  Of  course,  Polly  Anne  was  Polly  Anne,  after  all, 
and  her  happiness  must  always  be  a  first  consideration  with  him. 
Think  of  all  their  old  days  together !  Think  of  his  hours  of  acute 
misery,  when  that  young  monkey  Emmie,  five  years  ago,  must  needs 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  335 

imperil  her  mother's  life  and  her  own  by  her  indecent  haste  to  see 
the  World.  Think,  never  too  often,  of  his  gratitude  to  her  when  she 
took  him,  a  mere  derelict,  in  tow,  ten  years  since,  and  piloted  him 
into  safe  waters.  Think  as  much  as  possible  of  her  many  nursings 
of  him — of  the  many  pipes  they  had  virtually  had  together,  though 
he  was  the  operative  smoker — of  the  many  welcomes  he  had  looked 
forward  to.  And  as  little  as  possible  of  the  shortness  of  temper 
that  had  certainly  grown  upon  her,  but  was  very  likely  only  a 
phase  of  health  that  would  one  day  pass  away  and  be  forgotten. 
Remember  that  confounded  little  monkey — bless  her!  of  course — 
and  be  forbearing  to  her  mother. 

There  was  one  thought  about  her  that  twisted  and  tortured  this 
victim  of  over-self-examination  beyond  all  reason.  Look  how 
utterly,  how  almost  terribly,  Polly  Anne  had  replaced  poor  Kate! 
Surely  the  Great  Unknown  had  made  a  record  in  cruelty  when  he 
created  Love  the  Monopolist!  Why  feel  shocked  because,  after 
Kate  had  ceased,  her  sister  had  taken  over  her  inheritance  so  thor- 
oughly? Besides,  this  entire  supersession  of  poor  Kate  showed 
him  how  really  devoted  he  was  to  Marianne,  and  how  safe  he  and 
she  were  from  intrusions  from  without.  It  never  struck  him  as 
strange  that  he  should  be  seeking  for  assurance  that  he  loved  his 
own  wife. 

It  probably  would  have  done  so,  in  time,  if  his  reflections  had 
not  been  interrupted  at  this  point.  The  sound  of  the  carriage — 
with  Judith  in  it,  no  doubt — returning  from  Thanes.  Saladin,  the 
huge  boarhound,  coming  on  the  scene  first,  examined  Mr.  Challis 
without  any  sign  of  recognition,  and  seemed  to  decide  that  he 
had  nothing  contraband  about  him.  Then  he  waited  till  the  car- 
riage he  had  charge  of  came  in  sight,  and  trotted  on.  The  import 
of  his  demeanour  was  that  an  appointment  awaited  him  at  the 
house,  but  that  he  could  find  time  to  see  that  carriage  and  pair 
to  the  door — if  only  it  wouldn't  dawdle ! 

Whether  it  was  from  consideration  for  Saladin,  or  because  it 
was  haughty,  that  carriage  hardly  stopped.  Its  pause  was  barely 
long  enough  to  say,  through  the  mixed  and  hurried  inspirations  of 
its  occupants,  that  it  could  bring  itself  to  accommodate  Mr.  Challis 
on  the  front  seat.  Mr.  Challis,  alive  to  the  importance  of  not  sit- 
ting down  on  miscellanea,  preferred  walking;  for  all  that  the 
miscellanea  professed  readiness  to  be  quite  happy  elsewhere.  It 
was  only  a  step  to  the  house  now.  And  Saladin  was  waiting.  All 
right — go  on! 

Why  should  Challis  feel  something  akin  to  pique  because  that 
carriage  and  pair  took  him  at  his  word  and  went  on,  all  right? 


336  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Why  need  that  unfortunate  propensity  of  the  foot-passenger  beset 
him,  the  vice  of  mind  that  ascribes  every  action  of  a  two-horse 
carriage  to  aristocratic  pride?  Perhaps  he  wanted  to  file  an  ac- 
cusation against  something  or  someone,  and  was  not  ready  to  ad- 
mit that  Judith's  majestic  smile  and  head-inclination  had  anything 
to  do  with  it.  Anyhow,  the  rest  of  his  step  to  the  house  associated 
itself  with  a  warm  forgiving  feeling  towards  Polly  Anne  the  tire- 
some, the  miffy;  and  an  intensified  sense  of  outsideness  as  to  his 
own  social  whereabouts;  the  insidedness  being  that  of  a  fold  with 
Sir  Bernard  Burke  for  shepherd,  and  Rouge  Dragon  and  Garter 
King-at-arms  for  collie  dogs. 

He  arrived  at  the  house  to  find  the  world  flocking  to  dress  for 
dinner,  or  doing  it  already,  out  of  sight.  Flying  cordialities  from 
members  of  the  family,  unseen  till  then,  or  visitors  known  to  him 
previously,  intercepted  him  in  his  flight  up  the  great  staircase; 
but  innuendoes  from  well-informed  contemporaries  that  dinner  was 
at  a  quarter  to  eight  justified  abruptness  and  pointed  to  oppor- 
tunities for  explanation.  Challis  escaped  to  his  room,  and  found 
his  external  self  of  the  evening  to  come — all  but  the  head  and 
hands  he  had  on — laid  out  upon  the  bed,  waiting  patiently  to  be 
scrambled  into  in  a  hurry,  and  have  its  studs  and  buttons  sworn  at. 

But  he  was  not  destined  to  be  the  last  in  the  drawing-room,  al- 
though he  thought  it  could  not  be  otherwise.  For  when  he  arrived 
at  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  it  was  with  a  consciousness  on  him  of 
having  heard,  as  in  a  waking-dream,  the  sweetest  possible  drawl 
to  the  following  effect :  "  It  was  awl  yaw  fault.  It  wawsn't  mine 
one  bit,"  and  a  male  reply,  with  the  climax  of  human  content- 
ment in  every  syllable,  "  I'm  jolly  glad — it  lasted  so  much  longer  ? " 
and  then  a  headlong  rush  to  a  chaotic  toilette. 

And  that  young  man's  appearance  seven  minutes  later,  looking 
as  if  butter  wouldn't  melt  in  his  mouth,  would  have  done  honour  to 
a  lightning  transformationist.  But  the  distant  manner  of  the 
guilty  couple  was  carried  too  far,  as  everybody  guessed  all  about 
it,  and  would  have  done  so  even  without  the  furtive  looks  they 
exchanged  from  either  end  of  a  long  table. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

HOW  JUDITH'S  STAGE  MANIA  HAD  COOLED.  TROUT  BEND,  AND  A  TICKLISH 
INTERVIEW.  HALF-A-MILE  OFF  TEA.  A  DISCUSSION  ON  RELIGIOUS 
EDUCATION 

THE  story  has  scarcely  room  for  anything  that  was  said  or  done 
at  Royd  until  two  days  after  the  reunion  that  closed  the  last 
chapter.  All  it  wants  may  be  told  in  a  few  words.  Challis  was 
sulky  all  the  rest  of  the  first  evening,  and  would  not  admit  it  to 
himself.  Judith  was  dignified,  glittering,  and  universal;  talked  to 
everybody,  whereas  Challis  wanted  her  to  talk  to  him.  She  was 
judicious,  no  doubt — woman  of  the  world,  and  so  on — but  was  it 
necessary  to  carry  it  so  far?  Surely  Marianne  in  the  background 
safeguarded  the  situation? 

The  party  made  itself  at  home  rapidly,  having  begun  at  an  ad- 
vantage from  previous  experience.  On  the  third  day  after  its  ar- 
rival any  two  members  of  it  were  ripe  for  arranging  their  day  in 
each  other's  pockets,  and  treating  their  hosts  as  a  sort  of  lay  inn- 
keepers of  benevolent  dispositions,  but  quite  negligible.  Challis 
had  taken  the  latter  at  their  word  when  they  said  he  was  to  stop  in 
his  room  and  write  all  day  if  he  liked.  He  had  brought  his  MS. 
of  "  Estrild  "  with  him,  and  had  made  up  his  mind  to  complete  it. 
The  play  would  have  its  value,  even  if  the  Estrild  he  had  set  his 
heart  on,  and  had  written  the  part  for,  decided  on  not  attempt- 
ing it. 

For  a  doubt  had  crept  into  the  scheme  as  it  stood  when  Challis 
paid  that  visit  to  the  sprained-ankle  patient  in  Grosvenor  Square. 
Something  had  influenced  Judith  since  then;  probably  some 
passage  of  arms  with  her  family.  At  least,  so  Challis  surmised. 
But  she  had  told  him  next  to  nothing,  so  far.  Her  passing  lame- 
ness had  occasioned  a  break  in  tentative  readings  of  the  play,  in 
which  others  than  herself  had  taken  part;  and  during  this  inter- 
ruption it  had  been  evident  that  the  young  lady's  ambition  to  fly 
in  the  face  of  Society  and  family  tradition  had  undergone  a 
change.  But  the  invitation  to  Royd  at  Whitsuntide  remained  in 
black  and  white,  and  could  not  be  gainsaid. 

Therefore,  Challis  had  found  himself  on  that  well-remembered 

837 


338  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lawn,  as  recorded  in  our  last  chapter,  at  the  time  appointed,  with 
no  misgiving  on  him  at  the  moment  as  to  the  cordiality  of  his  wel- 
come. Nothing  had  happened  to  create  one.  But  as  the  hours 
grew  to  a  day,  and  then  to  days,  he  began  to  be  conscious  somehow 
that  his  hosts  had  towards  him  a  feeling  they  were  too  well-bred  to 
show;  and  not  only  that,  but  that  an  indefinable  discomfort  had 
arisen  between  himself  and  Judith.  Something  had  flawed  the  re- 
lation that  each  called  friendship,  and  refrained  from  speculating 
about  any  other  designation  for.  He  had  recognized  this  con- 
sciousness for  the  first  time  at  that  moment  beside  the  carriage. 
And  the  reason  he  so  readily  accepted  her  ladyship's  permission  to 
indulge  his  inspirations  ad  libitum  in  his  own  room  was  that  he  felt 
it  was  a  sort  of  release  to  him  to  do  so.  Was  it  a  release  for  them 
also?— for  Judith? 

If  this  visit  was  to  be  no  more  than  the  fulfilment  of  an  invita- 
tion to  which  his  hosts  stood  pledged,  let  him  work  it  out  like  a 
term  of  penal  servitude,  and  go  his  ways  at  the  end  of  it.  But  he 
chafed  at  the  impossibility  of  challenging  the  position  in  any  way. 
How  in  the  name  of  common-sense  could  he  say  to  the  Baronet  or 
her  ladyship,  "  I  see  through  your  persistent  amiability  of  manner 
that  your  feelings  towards  this  eminent  author  are  not  the  same 
to  a  nicety  as  they  were  six  months  since,  and  I  should  like  to  re- 
view the  situation  with  you,  with  a  view  to  the  removal  of  misun- 
derstandings "  ? 

Still  less  was  it  possible  to  say  to  Judith,  "You  know  that  an 
indescribable  change  of  manner  has  come  over  you  in  your  de- 
meanour towards  your  humble  admirer,  and  he  would  give  worlds 
to  know  the  cause  of  it.  But,  in  consideration  of  a  certain  effect 
you  have  upon  him,  of  a  certain  exaltation  he  experiences  in  your 
presence,  a  certain  depression  at  your  absence,  a  very  certain  ex- 
asperation at  any  suspicion  of  a  slight  to  him  in  favour  of  another 
male,  he  much  doubts  his  powers  of  self-command  through  an  ex- 
planatory interview.  So  he  cannot  ask  questions.  But  if  you 
could,  with  your  womanly  tact,  frame  some  communication  that 
would  let  him  know  what-the-anything  it  is  all  about,  he  would 
feel  very  grateful." 

The  position  was  a  delicate  one,  with  that  necessity  in  the  back- 
ground for  locking  his  heart  up  tight,  for  the  sake  of  Polly  Anne, 
of  whom — odd  though  it  may  seem — he  never  lost  sight.  Only  he 
never  actually  formulated  an  admission  of  its  delicacy.  The 
nearest  approach  to  it  was  when  a  sudden  image  of  Mr.  John 
Eldridge  flashed  across  his  mental  bioscope,  shut  one  of  its  eyes, 
and  said,  "  Rather  ticklish,  Master  Titus — eh  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  339 

Very  few  people  will  understand  the  odd  freaks  of  Challis's  mind, 
but  it  is  useless  to  write  this  story  and  omit  them. 

There  was  only  one  thing  he  was  absolutely  clear  about.  Nothing 
the  word  dishonourable  would  apply  to  was  admissible  into  any 
hypothetical  drama  his  mind  would  construct,  to  cut  the — rather 
hypothetical,  please! — Gordian  knot  of  his  relation  to  Judith.  He 
pictured  himself  to  himself  as  potentially  Don  Juan,  Captain  Mac- 
heath,  Silenus,  or  the  late  Prince  Regent,  as  far  as  his  normal  ideas 
of  morality  went ;  but  he  was  one  thing,  mind  you,  and  Judith  was 
another !  She,  being  what  she  was,  made  any  speculations  in  that 
department  irrelevant.  They  did  not  arise  from  any  question  be- 
fore the  House.  Besides — her  position!  Think  of  it! 

He  never  contrasted  his  estimation  of  Judith  now  with  his 
rough  valuation  of  her  at  first  sight.  Just  a  handsome  woman — 
the  fine  contents  of  an  expensive,  well-cut  dress — a  fit  mate  for 
fifty  thousand  a  year,  deer-forests  in  Scotland,  houses  in  Park 
Lane,  opera-boxes,  and  newspaper  paragraphs !  If  he  had  done  so, 
might  he  not  have  suspected,  in  the  exaggeration  of  thought  that 
placed  her  above  and  beyond  suspicion,  an  element  of  danger  more 
formidable  to  him  than  the  imaginary  laxity  he  was  so  ready  to 
credit  himself  with.  He  might  at  least  have  seen  the  moral  im- 
becility of  what  was  virtually  an  appeal  to  Judith's  self-respect 
and  integrity  to  protect  him  from  his  own  weakness.  Perhaps  he 
had  subcutaneous  misgivings  of  the  correctness  of  his  insight  into 
her  character  when  he  decided  that  it  would  never  do  to  tempt 
confidences  of  a  personal  nature. 

If  a  friendship  between  a  man  and  a  woman  is  to  remain  con- 
tented with  itself,  seeking  neither  promotion  nor  dissolution,  there 
must  not  be  present  in  it,  on  the  part  of  either,  any  longing  to 
gain  power  over  the  other.  Our  own  belief  is  that  if  Miss  Ark- 
royd's  self-love  had  not  felt  hurt  at  what  seemed  to  her  a  too 
ready  acceptance  by  Challis  of  the  position  in  which  a  slight 
change  in  her  manner  had  placed  him,  he  might  have  paid  his 
visit  to  Royd,  gone  back  home,  and  maybe  pretended  to  himself 
that  the  still  waters  of  his  inner  soul  had  never  been  ruffled  by 
Judith  or  any  other  fashionable  enchantress.  But  a  woman's  pleas- 
ure in  the  power  of  her  beauty  is  like  that  of  dram-drinking. 
She  may  "  swear  off,"  as  Rip  Van  Winkle  did,  a  thousand  times — 
but  she  will  go  back  and  do  it  again,  or  die  for  it.  How  can  she 
help  it,  when  a  glance,  a  movement,  a  slight  inexplicable  intonation 
of  her  voice,  is  enough  to  bring  back  to  bondage  the  idiot  that 
thinks  he  has  broken  free?  Why  should  she  try  to  help  it,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  self-interest,  when  she  believes — as  Judith  did, 


340  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

without  misgiving — that  she  can  throw  her  end  of  the  chain  away 
at  any  moment,  and  wash  her  hands  of  that  booby,  and  go  on  to 
another  ? 

Judith  believed  her  position  was  security  itself,  and  was  a  little 
piqued  at  the  readiness  with  which  Challis  had  jumped  at  the  per- 
mission to  withdraw  into  his  own  sanctum.  Whatever  behaviour  of 
her  own  had  influenced  this  readiness,  she  resented  it  as  an  inter- 
ruption to  an  assertion  of  power  she  was  beginning  to  feel  her- 
self entitled  to.  Like  the  dram-drinker,  she  could  not  do  without 
it.  So,  after  three  days  of  cordial  civility,  too  dexterous  to  indite 
as  a  change  of  front,  and  equally  dexterous  postponement  of  Estrild 
for  some  future  discussion,  the  young  lady,  without  explanation, 
resumed  the  half-familiar,  half-patronizing  tone  Challis  had  be- 
come accustomed  to  in  Grosvenor  Square. 

Some  three  days  later  it  happened  that  this  household  decided 
on  a  sort  of  picnic  known  to  it  as  "  half-a-mile-off  tea."  A  house- 
ful of  able-bodied  servants  made  this  festivity,  which  was  exactly 
what  its  name  implies,  easily  possible.  All  the  most  critical  tea- 
drinker  could  want  had  gone  before,  and  the  house-party,  or  most 
of  it,  was  straggling  across  the  parkland  to  Fern  Hollow,  the  place 
appointed.  Challis  and  Judith  were  accidentally  last. 

A  chance  left  him  the  only  hearer  of  a  voice  dropped  languidly 
for  the  benefit  of  his  ears  alone.  "  Let  these  noisy  people  go  on  in 
front,  Scroop,"  said  its  owner  to  him;  and  then,  in  reply  to  his 
amused  look  at  hearing  himself  so  addressed,  "  I  knew  I  should  do 
it  in  the  end,  because  of  the  newspaper  reviews.  Do  you  mind  my 
calling  you  Scroop  now  and  then,  by  accident  ? " 

"  Nothing  can  please  me  better,"  said  he.  "  Biggest  compliment 
you  can  pay  me !  "  It  started  the  soul-brush  afresh,  and  he  had 
to  settle  whether  it  was  to  be  submission  or  protest.  He  fancied  he 
could  manage  the  latter  even  though  he  acknowledged  the  voice, 
that  continued,  "  Suppose  we  go  by  Trout  Bend !  It's  nonsense  hur- 
rying. The  tea  can  wait.  Or  we  can  have  fresh  made."  This  was 
•concession,  both  in  the  proposed  tete-a-tete,  and  something  in  the 
familiarity  of  treatment,  which  seemed  to  savour  more  of  the 
Hermitage  than  Grosvenor  Square.  But  it  was  only  the  simple 
vocabulary  common  to  all  tea-worlds;  they  are  above  class  distinc- 
tions. 

"  Suppose  we  do,"  said  Challis.    And  they  did. 

Trout  Bend  is  a  small  incident  in  Geography.  But  it  has  a 
quality  in  common  with — for  instance — the  Arctic  Circle.  It  is 
always  the  same.  Its  lower  segment  has  the  same  merry  ripple 
over  the  same  stones,  and  its  upper  one  spreads  to  the  same  pools, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  341 

that  foster  here  and  there  each  year  the  very  selfsame  bulrushes,  to 
all  appearance.  And  in  the  middle  of  the  best  one — the  one,  that 
is,  that  lends  itself  best  to  self-deception  on  the  part  of  the  fisher- 
man— the  fish  that  leaped  last  year,  when  you  were  looking  at  it 
and  wondering  how  deep  it  was  in  the  middle,  does  it  again,  and 
doesn't  bore  you.  Because  if  he  did,  you  wouldn't  watch  for  him  a 
third  time.  Only  then  he  doesn't  do  it  again,  and  that  does  bore 
you.  And  where  the  pools  end  and  the  ripples  begin  are  the  same 
infatuated  stepping-stones,  that  think  they  can  bear  your  weight, 
and  can't.  And  then  you  become  spell-bound  on  them  as  they 
wobble,  and  are  rescued  by  extended  walking-sticks  from  either 
side,  and  get  across  quite  dry,  or  only  a  very  little  water  in  one 
shoe. 

It  was  all  the  same  this  time,  certainly,  as  when  Challis  was 
here  in  the  autumn;  all  but  a  black  swimming-bird,  who  had 
nodded  a  great  deal,  and  surprised  him,  but  not  his  companion — it 
was  Athelstan  Taylor — by  diving  suddenly  and  never  coming  up. 
The  Rector  had  explained  the  ways  of  water  hens,  and  that  this 
slyboots  was  still  under  some  floating  rubbish,  with  her  nose  out 
for  breath.  Challis  remembered  wondering  whether  the  whole  of 
this  class  of  birds  was  feminine,  and  watercocks  only  existed  in 
connection  with  the  Company.  There  was  none  this  time — neither 
cock  nor  hen — and  the  open  pastureland  this  side  the  beech- 
covert  was  all  ablaze  with  buttercups  in  the  high  grass.  For  the 
fallow-deer  found  their  pasture  farther  from  the  house,  and  never 
a  little  tail  wagged  on  a  dappled  back  in  sight  of  Challis  and  Judith 
as  they  crossed  the  bridge — one  slice  of  an  elm-tree,  with  the  out- 
line on  it  of  its  trunk  of  a  hundred  years  ago. 

"  I  suppose  you  know  the  legend  of  this  bridge  and  the  convict," 
said  the  lady,  turning  to  the  gentleman. 

"  What  legend  of  this  bridge  and  what  convict  ? "  His  inatten- 
tion to  his  words  was  shown  in  the  way  he  echoed  them — sounds 
without  meaning. 

"  You  must  have  heard  it.  When  he  was  a  boy — the  convict — he 
was  sent  with  a  small  package  containing  a  ring  to  a  lady  at  Tal- 
lack's  Gate — one  of  the  Cazenoves,  I  think  it  was — and  on  the  way 
he  thought  it  would  be  good  fun  to  have  a  look  inside  his  parcel. 
So  he  got  the  ring  out,  and,  standing  near  this  bridge,  dropped  it. 
He  hunted  for  it  in  vain,  and  then,  in  terror  of  his  mishap,  ran 
away.  I  never  quite  understood  it,  but  I  suppose  in  those  days 
they  convicted  people  very  easily  .  .  . " 

"  Much  more  than  now !    Was  this  chap  convicted  ? " 

"Yes — and  sent  to  Botany  Bay.    Twenty  years  after,  having 


342  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

served  his  time,  he  came  back  to  England,  married,  and  lived  to  be 
an  old  man,  but  always  under  a  ban.  One  day  he  came  here,  to 
this  spot,  with  a  grown-up  daughter  to  whom  he  then  told  the 
whole  tale  for  the  first  time.  When  he  finished  he  said  to  her :  '  I 
was  standing  just  where  you  are  when  I  dropped  it.'  She  said, 
'  Here  on  the  ground,  or  here  on  the  bridge,'  and  touched  the  plank 
with  her  parasol.  The  point  of  it  slipped  into  a  knothole  in  the 
wood,  and  when  she  drew  it  out,  something  glittered  on  it.  It 
was  the  ring." 

Challis  was  in  the  habit  of  inventing  horrors  for  serials,  and  had 
had  some  success.  But  it  chanced  that  he  had  never  before  heard 
this  story — which,  by  the  way,  is  told  in  connection  with  more  than 
one  locality  in  England — and  he  envied  the  master-hand  that  had 
fashioned  it.  He  told  in  exchange  the  tale  of  the  man  who  brought 
what  he  thought  was  his  wife  out  of  a  house  on  fire,  too  black  for 
recognition  by  his  scorched  and  dazzled  eyesight,  and  sat  with  his 
hand  in  hers  till  a  strange  voice  came  from  the  lips,  and  asked  if 
the  lady  had  been  got  out,  naming  his  wife.  "But  your  story  is 
more  probable,"  he  in  conclusion.  "A  man  would  know.  ..." 

"  Know  his  own  wife's  hand  ?  Of  course  he  would !  But  are  we 
under  any  obligation  to  sup  full  of  horrors  on  a  day  like  this?" 
Her  voice  was  that  of  indifference,  dismissing  an  unpleasant  topic. 
Challis  slightly  resented  its  placidity,  which  looked  as  if  the  hor- 
rors had  been  easily  digested,  at  least.  It  seemed  to  him  to  do 
injustice  to  a  sweetness  of  disposition  he  chose  to  consider  insepa- 
rable from  the  beautiful  eyelids  at  ease  under  a  slight  protest  of 
raised  brows — the  beautiful  lips  that  waited  unclosed  for  an  answer 
to  their  question. 

"  What  do  you  prefer  me  to  talk  about  ? "  said  he.  "  The  crops  ? 
The  weather?" 

"  Nonsense,  Scroop ! "  She  paused  in  her  walk,  so  that  he  had 
either  to  look  round  at  her  or  show  no  wish  to  know  why.  "  I  sup- 
pose you  must  have  guessed,"  she  said,  without  logical  continuity. 
A  request  for  explanation  would  have  been  warranted. 

But  Challis  was  in  no  mind  for  make-believe.  He  took  her 
meaning,  which  he  knew  quite  well,  for  granted.  "  I  have  had 
my  suspicions,"  said  he.  "But  I  could  not  catechize,  as  you 
seemed  so  silent.  Tell  me  now!  .  .  .  Which  is  it? — mother — 
father?— sister?  ...  Is  it  Sibyl?— or  the  Bart?— or  the 
madre?"  The  way  in  which  these  familiar  designations  were 
accepted  as  a  matter  of  course  showed  how  their  relations  of  last 
September  had  defined  and  strengthened  themselves. 

"  All  three.    At  least — I  ought  to  be  fair — my  father  least  of  all ! 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  343 

Indeed,  I  believe  that  if  an  instance  could  be  found  of  any  lady  of 
William  the  Conqueror's  taking  part  in  a  Court  performance,  he 
would  concede  the  point  altogether.  Has  he  spoken  to  you  about 
it?  .  .  .  Well! — of  course  he  wouldn't  do  that.  But  has  he 
'  approached  the  subject '  ?  Of  course,  that  is  what  he  would  do — 
'  approach  the  subject.'  " 

"  No — no  one  has  said  a  word  about  it.  But  I  guessed,  soon 
after  I  came  down,  that  the  play  was  doomed.  I  did  not  at  first 
suppose  it  was  your  family,  as  a  matter  of  course.  I  thought  you 
might  have  settled  to  throw  it  up  on  your  own  account."  She 
made  a  sort  of  impatient  disclaimer — a  head-shake  that  flung  that 
possibility  aside,  and  forgot  it.  But  she  said  nothing,  and  he  con- 
tinued :  "  There  was  a  row,  I  suppose  ?  Don't  tell  me  more  about 
it  than  you  like.  Don't  tell  me  anything  if  you  .  .  ." 

"  I  prefer  to  tell  you.  Who  is  there  that  I  can  talk  to  about  it 
if  not  to  you  ? "  This  was  the  soul-brush  again ;  and  again  Chal- 
lis's  inner  consciousness  gasped  at  the  choice  he  had  to  make  be- 
tween giving  way  to  a  luxury,  a  dangerous  intoxication,  and  at- 
tempting to  freeze  the  conversation  down  to  a  safe  temperature. 

Duty  dictated  a  struggle  for  the  latter.  He  affected  a  manner  of 
equable  unconcern  fairly  well.  "  No  one,"  said  he,  "  unless  you 
were  to  make  a  confidante  of  .  .  ."  He  stopped  short  of  saying 
"  Marianne,"  conscious  of  difficulties  ahead.  But  he  could  shelve 
the  side-issue,  and  fall  back  on  the  previous  question  with  a  sense 
of  getting  out  of  shoal  water.  "  There  was  a  row,  then  .  .  . 
well — a  warm  discussion,  suppose  we  say?  It's  more  refined,  cer- 
tainly. What  form  did  it  take  ? " 

"  Then  we  mustn't  go  so  quick,"  said  Judith.  "  Or  I  shan't  have 
time."  She  was  inconsecutive;  but  it  was  clear,  when  she  paused 
in  her  walk  through  the  long  grass,  that  it  was  for  an  anchorage. 
"  Suppose  we  sit  down  a  little  here,"  she  said.  "  Unless  you 
mind  ?  "  Challis  didn't. 

"  Here  "  was  an  oak  trunk  that  must  have  said  to  itself  when  it 
was  a  sapling — four  hundred  years  ago,  maybe — "  I  will  see  to  it, 
when  I  am  grown  up,  that  my  roots  shall  live  above  ground,  and  be 
thick  with  moss ;  and  one  shall  be  horizontal  and  a  seat  for  a  king, 
who  shall  lean  against  me  contented.  But  he  shall  go,  that  lovers 
may  come;  and  they  shall  make  up  my  contentment,  and  I  shall 
hear  their  voices  in  the  twilight."  Challis  half  made  this  little 
legend  as  he  took  his  place  by  Miss  Arkroyd  on  that  tree-trunk. 
But  he  fought  shy  of  the  sequel  their  presence  suggested — what 
word  ought  his  fancy  to  supply  as  the  tree's  imaginary  speech 
about  themselves?  He  shrank  from  it,  and  he  knew  the  reason 


344  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

why.  It  was  because,  as  his  own  disordered  passion  grew,  as  he 
found  himself  more  and  more  at  loggerheads  with  his  lot,  he  be- 
came more  and  more  alive  to  the  danger  of  relying  on  this  woman 
herself  as  his  protection  against  himself.  How  if  she  gave  way, 
too? 

As  far  as  any  conscious  loss  of  self-control  at  that  moment 
went,  on  the  part  of  Miss  Judith  Arkroyd,  Challis  need  not  have 
fretted.  Never  was  a  young  woman  more  perfectly  cool  and  col- 
lected, more  equal  to  any  occasion  that  might  arise  in  connection 
with  a  love  of  power  that  she  just  felt  this  man  was  a  satisfactory 
lay-figure  for.  That  best  defines  all  the  feeling  she  had  on  his  ac- 
count— so  far. 

She  resumed  the  conversation  where  the  question  of  anchorage 
had  interrupted  her.  "  I  don't  think  we  have  rows  in  our  family, 
in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word.  That  is,  if  I  understand  it 
rightly.  .  .  .  No! — I  know  what  you  are  going  to  say.  It  has 
nothing  to  do  with  that  repose  that  marks  the  caste  of  Vere  de 
Vere.  It  is  entirely  individual  and  local.  We  have  our  quarrels, 
of  course,  but  they  take  the  form  of  distant  civility,  entirely  due, 
as  I  understand,  to  our  self-respect.  There  is  nothing  we  Ark- 
royds  respect  more  than  ourselves,  not  even  the  Bill  of  Rights  or 
the  Protestant  Succession.  ..." 

Challis  interrupted:     "But  the  distant  civility,  this  time?  ..." 

"  Followed  naturally  on  my  telling  Sibyl  that  the  first  act  of 
Estrild  was  ready  for  rehearsal.  She  merely  said  she  supposed  I 
must  go  my  own  way.  But  that  day  after  lunch  she  allowed  me  to 
leave  the  apartment  first.  It  had  been  a  cold  lunch,  as  far  as  emo- 
tions went;  and  I  knew,  when  Sibyl  stood  courteously  on  one  side 
to  let  me  pass,  what  was  coming.  So  I  wasn't  the  least  surprised 
to  find  a  letter  from  my  mother  on  the  dressing-table  next  morn- 
ing." 

"A  letter  from  your  mother!"  Challis's  tone  was  puzzle, 
awaiting  enlightenment.  Judith  was  not  to  be  hurried,  though. 
For  one  thing,  she  was  engaged  with  a  beetle,  who  wanted  either 
to  go  home  or  to  get  farther  away  from  home.  She  had  been 
heading  off  his  successive  rushes  in  different  directions  with  an 
ungloved  hand,  which  he  always  refused  to  crawl  upon.  The  per- 
severance she  gave  to  this  seemed  not  altogether  without  its  charm 
to  her  companion. 

"  He  seems  to  be  praying  for  those  that  despitefully  use  him," 
she  said,  referring  to  the  action  of  his  antenna?.  Then,  without 
discontinuing  her  amusement,  she  went  back  to  the  conversation. 
u  Yes — a  letter,  with  '  My  dearest  daughter '  at  the  beginning,  and 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  345 

'  Your  affectionate  mother '  at  the  end.  Do  you  not  believe  me  ? 
It's  quite  true — all  my  family  do  it!  In  fact,  it  was  a  long  time 
before  I  found  out  that  other  families  didn't  do  it,  too.  I  can  tell 
you  this  letter  all  through." 

Then  in  a  semi-humorous,  indifferent  way  she  gave  alternately 
its  actual  wording  and  the  upshot  of  some  of  its  passages.  Lady 
Arkroyd  hoped  she  had  been  misinformed  about  her  daughter's  in- 
tentions. She  was  aware  that  she  had  no  longer  any  legal  con- 
trol over  her,  and  she  made  no  appeal  to  anything  but  her  good 
feeling.  She  would  not  comment  on  the  character  of  the  associates 
with  whom  her  daughter  would  probably  be  brought  in  contact. 
She  would  limit  what  she  had  to  say  entirely  to  the  underlined 
deep  grief  that  Sir  M.  and  herself  would  experience  if  their  child 
persisted  in  a  course  which  could  only  lead  to  degradation  and 
disgrace.  She  then  forgot  her  promise  to  say  nothing  against  the 
profession,  and  gave  a  brief  sketch  of  it  founded  on  Hogarth's 
"  Strolling  Players."  After  which  she  wound  up  with  an  ex- 
hortation to  her  daughter  not  to  break  her  father's  underlined  heart 
in  his  underlined  old  age.  "  And  so  on,"  said  Judith,  in  placid 
conclusion,  still  continuing  her  persecution  of  the  beetle.  Challis's 
infatuation  believed  that  all  this  was  parti  pris — mere  bravado ;  and 
that  his  insight  saw  truly  a  hinterland  of  devoted  affection  to  her 
parents,  and  consideration  for  the  comfort  of  beetles.  Such  is  the 
power  of  beauty! 

"  And  that  letter  determined  you  to  give  up  the  drama  ? " 
"  Oh  no ! — it  was  only  the  beginning  of  it.  I  wrote  in  reply, 
saying  I  was  sorry  to  give  pain  to  such  an  exemplary  parent  as  my 
papa — that  was  not  the  wording,  only  the  sense — but  that  I  had 
made  up  my  mind,  and  was  not  prepared  to  disappoint  you  in  order 
to  keep  up  the  traditions  of  a  rather  dreary  respectability.  I  said 
you  had  written  this  part  for  me,  and  I  had  promised  to  play  it, 
and  that  ended  the  matter.  My  ancestors  had  always  kept  their 
promises,  and  I  should  keep  mine.  I  laid  a  good  deal  of  stress 
on  Sibyl."  At  this  point  the  beetle  got  away  cleverly,  threatening 
a  break  in  the  conversation.  This  was  not  what  Challis  wanted. 
"  I  don't  understand,"  said  he.  "  Why  '  stress  on  Sibyl '  ? " 
"I  mean  on  Sibyl's  being  allowed  to  indulge  all  her  fancies,  at 
any  cost;  and  to  take  up  trade,  too — a  thing  that  our  ancestors 
would  not  have  tolerated  for  a  moment.  Why  is  the  Great  Idea 
to  be  capitalized  with  thousands?  ..." 

"  And  Shakespeare's  trade  discountenanced  ?  I  see,  and  agree 
in  the  main.  I  suppose  they  said  it  wasn't  a  trade — the  Great 
Idea?" 


346  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  They  did.  Sibyl  said  it  was  Guilds  and  Crafts,  and  Mediaeval, 
and  quite  another  thing.  Perhaps  it  is;  I  don't  know.  But  I'm 
sure  '  Sibyl  Arkroyd,  Limited '  is  neither  Mediaeval  nor  Guilds,  and 
that's  what  they  propose  to  call  it." 

"  It  sounds  like  six  three-farthings,  and  pay  at  the  desk.  They 
can  hardly  be  in  earnest." 

"Well,  I  don't  know!  People  of — of  condition  are  getting  to 
take  such  curious  views  of  things.  It's  nothing  nowadays  for  a 
Countess  to  promise  punctual  attention  to  orders.  Was  it  you  told 
me  there  was  a  Curate  who  preached  a  Sermon  on  the  New 
Atheism  in  its  relation  to  Socialism  ?  .  .  .  No  ? — oh,  then,  it  was 
somebody  else ! " 

Challis  suspected  that  Judith  was  talking  in  this  way  to  defer 
telling  him  the  upshot  of  the  family  discussion.  He  said  nothing, 
and  the  flight  of  a  heron  filled  out  a  lapse  into  silence  which  fol- 
lowed. And  then  Judith,  who  had  risen  from  the  tree-root  to 
watch  the  vanishing  bird,  turned  to  Challis,  and  resumed: 

"  Shall  we  go  on  ?.  .  .  Oh,  what  was  I  talking  about  ?  Sibyl 
and  the  Great  Idea.  Well! — you  see,  the  thing  worked  out  like 
this:  Papa  had  been  wavering  a  good  deal  about  financing  the 
Great  Idea,  and  Sir  Spender  Inglis  had  become  very  restive  in- 
deed, and  was  ready  to  jump  at  any  excuse  for  backing  out  of 
his  undertaking.  He  saw  his  opportunity,  and  pointed  out — like 
Mr.  Brownrigg — that  my  logic  was  irresistible,  and  that  it  was 
impossible  to  forbid  my  appearing  on  the  boards  if  Sibyl  was  to  be 
allowed  to  go  behind  the  counter.  A  recent  slump  in  Kaffirs 
had  fostered  economical  impulses,  I  suppose.  Anyhow,  if  I  sur- 
render the  stage  conditionally,  my  parent  will  keep  his  money  in 
his  pocket." 

"  Won't  Sibyl  Limited  get  it  somewhere  else  ? " 

"  She  thinks  she  will,  and  my  brother  thinks  so,  no  doubt. 
But  will  they?  Perhaps  you  know  about  these  things.  I  don't." 

"  I  know  little  or  nothing,"  said  Challis.  "  But  I  understand 
that  the  chief  point  is  settled.  You  won't  play  Estrild."  There 
was  no  affectation  of  unconcern  in  his  manner  now. 

The  two  walked  on  together  along  the  river-brink  of  Trout 
Bend  in  silence;  until,  leaving  the  river,  a  path,  winding  through 
scattered  gorse  and  fern,  brought  them  in  sight  of  the  picnic 
party  in  the  shade  of  a  great  beech,  the  vanguard  of  the  deep 
woods  beyond.  Then  Judith  stopped  and  said:  "I  suppose  you 
are  angry  with  me  ? " 

To  which  Challis  replied,  with  vexation  in  his  voice:  "I  could 
have  forgiven  you  more  than  that."  Said  as  a  politeness  this 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  347 

speech  would  have  meant,  "  That  is  a  mighty  small  matter  to  for- 
give you  for."  Said  with  a  gasp,  or  something  like  it,  it  meant, 
to  Judith's  ears,  that  she  had  been  winding  that  skein — this  man's 
life,  you  see! — too  quickly  round  her  finger.  He  might  become 
embarrassing. 

"  You  will  find  another  Estrild,"  she  said.  An  attempt  at  a 
laugh  failed,  and  its  failure  was  worse  than  its  omission  would 
have  been. 

"I  shall  not  try,"  said  he.  And  then  his  evil  genius  saw  his 
chance,  and  made  Alfred  Challis  conceive  that  he  could,  for  the 
release  of  his  soul,  make  a  false  fetch  of  what  he  would  have 
liked  to  say,  in  terms  of  a  parallel  line  of  thought.  "  I  care  little 
or  nothing  for  the  play  for  its  own  sake.  My  interest  was  in  your 
presentation  of  the  leading  part."  The  words  were  safe,  so  far 
as  they  went — might  have  been  spoken  to  a  male  actor  who  had 
taken  another  engagement.  But  he  could  not  leave  it  there. 
That  Evil  Genius  must  needs  make  him  go  on  speaking,  with  more 
and  more  betrayal  of  the  great  share  she  whom  he  addressed  had 
personally  in  his  visible  chagrin.  Visible  in  the  restless  move- 
ment of  his  hand  about  his  face.  And  audible  in  the  way  he 
crushed  his  words  out,  cut  them  short  on  their  last  letter,  threw 
them  behind  him :  "  Listen  to  me,  and  believe  what  I  say.  I 
count  the  play  not  worth  completion  now.  With  you  the  life  goes 
out  of  it.  It  has  become  nothing  for  me."  Then  his  voice  fell, 
and  whatever  it  had  of  petulance  settled  down  to  determination. 
"  As  for  what  is  written  of  the  play,  I  tell  you  plainly,  I  shall 
destroy  it.  At  least,  it  shall  never  be  acted  by  anyone  else.  .  .  . 
Stop  one  minute,  and  let  me  finish.  I  have  not  a  word  or  a 
thought  of  blame  for  you,  Judith  Arkroyd.  It  was  a  mad  idea — 
the  whole  thing!  Now  I  see  plainly  that  it  never  could  have 
been.  Let  us  forget  it — all !  " 

The  face  that  he  spoke  to  was  none  the  less  beautiful  that  its 
owner  was  frightened  at  his  vehemence.  It  continued  to  be — to 
this  fool  of  a  man  who  had  not  the  courage  to  run  away  from  it, 
but  who  was  not  at  liberty  to  love  it — the  face  of  six  months  ago 
that  had  been  growing  on  him  ever  since.  He  would  almost  have 
been  thankful — though  he  would  not  confess  it  to  himself — for 
visible  flaws  in  it;  a  squint,  a  twist,  an  artificial  tooth  or  two  be- 
traying their  extraction,  or  their  predecessors'.  A  wig  would  have 
spelt  salvation,  as  the  Press  puts  it. 

As  for  Judith,  she  was  perfectly  alive,  by  now,  to  the  sub- 
intents  of  meaning  woven  into  Challis's  speech,  for  the  easement 
of  a  feeling  he  could  neither  tell  nor  conceal.  "Let  us  forget  it 


348  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

all !  "  was  so  overtense  in  emphasis,  if  referring  only  to  a  dis- 
appointment about  a  part  in  a  play,  that  it  scarcely  left  room 
for  an  equable  society  response.  Her  tone  of  voice  had  to  keep 
at  bay  any  hint  of  a  meaning  that  might  have  betrayed  both  into  a 
recognition  of  the  precipice  they  were  so  close  to.  As  might  have 
been  expected,  she  lost  her  presence  of  mind,  and  overdid  it.  "I 
can't  see  any  occasion  for  hysterics  about  it,"  said  she.  "  Of 
course,  I  am  awfully  sorry,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  But  we 
live  in  a  world,  after  all!  And  I  suppose  one  must  sometimes 
accommodate  one's  views  to  the  necessities  of  Society.  .  .  .  Oh 
dear! — these  people  are  quite  close."  She  referred  to  their  near 
approach  to  the  assembled  tea-drinkers,  some  of  whom,  at  peace 
with  all  mankind  under  its  influence,  were  scattering  abroad 
through  the  neighbouring  woods  and  dingles,  discussing  religious 
education  and  the  fighting  power  of  nations,  pigeon-shooting,  and 
Psychical  Research. 

"  We  came  away  from  the  tree  too  soon,"  Challis  said.  "  Can't 
we  turn?  ..." 

"  Suppose  we  do.  We  can  go  round  the  coppice.  .  .  .  What 
was  I  saying?  Oh — about  Society!  Don't  you  think  it  is  so? 
One  has  to  reckon  with  one's  Social  Duties.  So  I'm  told." 

"  We  could  have  thought  of  Society  before,"  Challis  said,  rather 
sullenly.  And  then  he  felt  brutal.  "  No,  Judith  Arkroyd,  I  won't 
say  that.  Forgive  me!  All  I  mean  is — it  was  all  just  as  true — 
what  you  say  about  Society — six  months  ago  as  it  is  now.  The 
mistake  was  then." 

A  small  thing  in  his  speech  unnerved  Judith — the  way  he  used 
her  full  name.  This  was  the  second  time  he  had  done  so.  It 
seemed  to  imply  some  new  aspect  of  their  relation — the  throwing 
aside  of  some  veil — the  recognition  of  some  discarded  formality. 
She  was  no  longer  "Miss  Arkroyd";  and  "Judith"  would  have 
been  either  patronage  or  impertinence.  In  her  case  there  was  no 
professional  name  to  build  a  half-way  house  to  familiarity  on. 

She  dropped  her  worldly  tone  as  misplaced  or  useless,  as  she 
said :  "  I  had  at  one  time  half  thought  I  would  leave  you  to  finish 
the  play  before  I  cried  off.  But  should  I  have  done  you  any 
service  ?  I  thought  not,  in  the  end,  and  I  wished  to  get  it  over." 

He  said:  "It  is  over  now.  No  harm  is  done.  I  would  not 
have  had  it  otherwise." 

She  replied :  "  Your  work  will  not  be  lost.  You  will  think  bet- 
ter of  it — better  about  destroying  it,  I  mean.  You  will  finish  it, 
I  hope." 

"  No — I  think  I  shall  probably  destroy  it.    I  hate  having  in- 


349 

complete  manuscripts  hanging  about.  They  keep  me  always  in 
doubt  whether  to  go  on  with  them  or  not." 

"  Then  give  this  one  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  and  finish  it. 
Come !  "  She  tried  to  leggierire  the  tone  of  the  conversation,  but 
it  was  a  failure — worse  than  a  failure,  by  the  speech  that  followed 
on  its  provocation. 

"  I  can  have  no  woman  play  the  leading  part  but  you.  It  was 
written  for  you,  and  I  have  kept  you  in  my  mind  as  I  wrote. 
I  .  .  ."  And  then  Alfred  Challis  stopped  dead.  But  his  speech, 
had  he  let  it  all  out  of  his  heart,  would  have  been :  "  I  have  kept 
you  in  my  mind,  and  now  you  will  not  leave  it.  You  have  crept 
into  its  secret  corners,  and  rise  up  between  me  and  my  duty  at 
every  turn.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  those  eyes  of  yours  have 
flashed  through  every  syllable  of  my  very  commonplace  blank 
verse,  that  that  voice  of  yours  has  filled  out  my  imagination  of  a 
dozen  soliloquies  complying  with  the  highest  canons  of  dramatic 
art,  that  that  hand  of  yours  has  caressed  undeserving  tyrants  and 
stabbed  innocent  persons  on  insufficient  provocation !  "  It  would 
have  been  all  this,  for  he  would  not  have  been  himself  if  he  had 
kept  back  his  constant  sense  of  the  ridiculous,  a  term  in  which  his 
mind  included  himself  as  a  prime  factor.  But  he  said  never  a 
word  further  than  what  we  have  reported.  Only  the  last  particle, 
"  I,"  as  good  as  contained  all  the  rest. 

Judith  understood  it  all  now — all  that  was  needed — and  began 
to  find  her  breath  and  the  pulsation  of  her  heart — things  one 
usually  forgets — forcing  themselves  on  her  attention.  Why  need 
the  former  catch  and  trip,  and  clip  or  magnify  her  words  ?  Could 
not  the  last  keep  still?  Plague  take  human  nature!  To  think 
that  she,  Judith  Arkroyd,  mistress  of  herself  in  her  own  conceit, 
should  be  thus  upset;  unable  to  steer  her  ship  out  of  the  cur- 
rents of  a  semi-flirtation — granted,  that  much,  Sibyl! — with  a 
middle-aged  scribbler,  who  meant  to  be  bald,  in  a  year  or  so ! 

Had  Challis  dared  to  look  at  her  at  that  moment,  he  would 
have  seen  that  she  had  lost  colour,  as  she  stopped  beside  a 
hawthorn  with  some  pretence  of  gathering  the  pink  may-bloom. 
No  one  gathers  may  without  a  knife,  and  what  Judith  really  did 
was  to  get  a  passing  stay,  against  a  slight  dizziness,  from  a  hand 
rested  on  a  bough  in  easy  reach.  The  gathering  pretence  sanc- 
tioned Challis's  half-dozen  paces  in  advance.  But  he  did  not 
look  back  at  her — and  it  was  well  for  him,  perhaps,  so  beautiful 
was  she  against  the  may-tree — nor  she  at  him.  She  knew,  and  he 
knew  she  knew. 

Both  were  so  conscious  of  their  mutual  consciousness  that  they 


350  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tacitly  agreed  to  say  nothing.  But  there  was  a  difference  of  feel- 
ing due  to  their  positions.  Challis  could  not  live  with  a  Tantalus 
cup  held  to  his  lips,  and  was,  moreover,  constantly  stung  with  the 
injustice  to  Marianne  of  admission  of — entertainment  of — submis- 
sion to  love  for  another  woman.  Poor  dear  old  Marianne,  at  home 
there  by  herself!  So  he  honestly  wished  to  fly — fly  from  himself 
if  you  like  to  put  it  so — from  Judith,  at  any  rate,  as  her  beauty 
had  become  insupportable,  and  to  his  home  as  a  haven  by  prefer- 
ence, just  to  live  this  folly  down  and  forget  it. 

And  as  for  the  young  woman — well! — she  didn't  want  to  lose 
Challis  altogether.  She  could  see  no  reason  why  a  sort  of  af- 
fectionate friendship  should  not  be  cherished  between  them,  not 
she!  It  was  in  the  nature  of  the  animal,  and  it  may  be  Challis 
had  been  entirely  at  fault  in  casting  the  part  of  Estrild,  whom  he 
had  certainly  not  portrayed  as  a  person  who  would  be  content,  like 
Bunthorne,  with  a  vegetable  love.  It  may  be  also  that  the  cold- 
blooded faculty  Sibyl  objected  to  in  her  sister  was  part  of  thia 
nature.  A  pleasure  in  disconcerting  married  folks'  confidence  in 
each  other  may  belong  to  systems  without  a  heart.  Only,  biters 
are  sometimes  bit. 

Whether  or  not  what  this  lady  said  next,  after  the  two  had 
walked,  a  little  way  apart,  exchanging  neither  look  nor  speech, 
until  the  tea-party  came  again  in  view — for  they  had  made  the 
circuit  of  the  coppice-wood — whether  this  had  anything  to  do  with 
her  wish  to  avoid  a  complete  separation  from  her  literary  friend 
or  not,  we  cannot  guess.  It  may  have,  and  yet  she  herself  may 
not  have  known  it. 

"Marianne  has  never  answered  my  letter,"  she  said.  "You 
knew  I  had  written  ? " 

"  No,"  he  replied.  "  I  did  not.  What  had  you  to  say  to  Mari- 
anne ? " 

"  I  wrote  to  beg  her  earnestly  once  more  to  change  her  mind, 
and  pay  us  a  visit.  We  do  wish  her  to  come." 

"  What  good  would  it  do  ? "  His  question  vexed  Judith.  Why 
could  he  not  help  her  at  least  to  shut  her  eyes  to  a  change  in  their 
relation  each  had  to  know  of,  yet  to  seem,  in  self-defence,  to  ig- 
nore the  other's  knowledge  of?  He  evidently  had  no  intention  of 
doing  so. 

"  What  good  ? "  she  repeated.  "  What  an  odd  way  of  putting  it, 
Scroop!  Why — of  course — only  that  it  would  be  pleasant,  and 
that  we  should  be  glad  to  have  her!  I  always  feel  that  I  should 
like  to  know  her  better,  for  my  own  part."  Her  pique  at  his  want 
of  tact  had  been  a  bracing  stimulus,  and  enabled  her  to  put  their 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  351 

talk  more  on  its  old  footing.  The  subdued  tone  gave  place  to 
what  was  almost  like  that  of  those  thoughtless,  unembarrassed 
groups  they  were  drawing  so  near  to.  How  free  from  care  every- 
one else  does  seem  when  one  meets  him  out! 

Of  course,  she  threw  off  their  late  conversation — washed  her 
hands  of  it — quicker  than  he  could.  But  by  the  time  they  came 
within  hearing  of  the  nearest  group,  and  heard  the  word  denom- 
inational, and  knew  thereby  that  religious  education  was  under 
discussion,  Challis  had  shaken  off  the  gloom  or  distraction  that 
made  his  answer  ring  so  false :  "  You  are  kindness  itself  to  Mari- 
anne. I  wish  she  were  more  tractable."  Those  were  his  words. 
They  had  sounded  rather  civil  than  true  or  heart-felt.  But  be- 
hind them,  inexplicably,  was  a  feeling  akin  to  gratitude  to  Judith, 
who  had  somehow  made  it  easier  to  his  mind  to  go  back  to  Mari- 
anne without  a  shock.  Not  that  it  would  have  been  good  form  in 
him  to  acknowledge  it! 

In  the  pre-Shakespearian  days  of  Love,  did  ever  a  King  Solo- 
mon, we  wonder,  feel  grateful  to  the  last  Hareem  capture  for  a 
courtesy  shown  to  a  disused,  tolerated  survival  of  other  days? 

Challis  was  intercepted  by  the  group  of  heated  discutients, 
saturated  with  religious  education.  Judith  passed  on  without 
looking  at  him,  merely  referring  to  the  abstract  truth,  "There  is 
tea,"  and  leaving  his  teawardness  to  develope  itself  at  leisure,  or 
die  of  neglect.  The  huge  boarhound  left  a  sweet  biscuit  to  meet 
her,  and  after  exchanging  a  few  words  and  a  kiss,  made  believe 
that  he  had  found  her  in  the  wilderness,  and  brought  her  in 
safety  to  refreshments,  which  it  was  distinctly  understood  that 
he  was  to  share. 

The  conclave  on  religious  education,  like  Polly's  employers 
after  Sukey  had  taken  the  kettle  off  again — presumably — had  all 
had  tea,  and  were  horridly  indifferent  about  anyone  else  going 
without. 

They  were  confident  they  might  rely  on  Mr.  Challis's  impar- 
tiality to  distinguish  between  things  that  to  the  casual  observer 
might  seem  identical ;  to  assign  due  weight  to  considerations  which 
the  superficial  observer  would  overlook;  and  to  sift  and  examine 
evidence  which  the  prejudiced  observer  would  be  only  too  prone 
to  reject. 

Mr.  Challis,  appealed  to  to  give  an  impromptu  casting-vote  on 
a  variety  of  subjects,  felt  impartial  and  flattered.  He  could  only 
contribute,  he  said,  an  absolute  freedom  from  bias  on  the  question 
of  religious  education.  He  regretted  his  total  absence  of  in- 
formation, the  possession  of  which,  in  however  small  a  degree,  al- 


352  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ways  adds  weight  to  the  decisions  of  the  most  unbiassed  judg- 
ment. However,  it  soon  became  clear  that  all  that  was  asked  of 
him  was  that  he  should  listen  impartially  to  all  three  disputants, 
and  hold  his  tongue  sine  die  while  they  talked  sixteen  to  the  dozen. 
As  he  was  not  in  a  humour  for  talking,  he  had  no  objection  to 
this. 


CHAPTER  XXVIH 

THE  BRITISH  HOUSEKEEPER.  HOW  MRS.  ELDRIDGE  CAME  INSTEAD  OF 
TO-MORROW.  HER  ADVICE.  TELEGRAPH  GIRLS.  A  FRENCHWOMAN'S 
IDEAS.  HOW  THE  CAT  GOT  NO  SLEEP.  HOW  MARIANNE  POSTED  A 
CIVIL  SORT  OF  LETTER  IN  THE  PILLAR-BOX,  AND  WAS  SORRY 

IN  the  absence  of  Master  Bob  at  Rugby,  and  of  his  father  with 
those  Royd  people  in  the  country,  Mrs.  Challis  had  a  quiet  time 
in  the  Hermitage.  She  was  able  to  keep  housekeeping  at  bay  by 
ordering  in  a  joint  for  the  family  to  prey  on  slowly  for  three  days 
or  thereabouts;  after  which  Mrs.  Steptoe  had  to  help  her  to  think 
of  what  to  have  in.  Marianne  sat  still  and  bit  a  pen-stick,  while 
Mrs.  Steptoe  remarked  at  intervals,  "You  see,  as  I  say,  ma'am, 
it  isn't  as  if  there  was  anything  in  the  house." 

When  Aunt  Stingy  had  done  this  two  or  three  times,  her 
mistress  indicated  the  nature  of  the  problem  to  be  dealt  with; 
saying,  as  a  contented  giraffe  might  have  done,  "  I  don't  want 
another  neck." 

Mrs.  Steptoe  advanced  a  cautious  suggestion:  "You  don't  take 
to  liver,  ma'am?"  Mrs.  Challis  did  not;  that  was  flat!  But  a 
piece  for  the  kitchen  was  a  different  thing.  Just  as  you  liked! 
Mrs.  Steptoe  said  in  a  soothing  manner,  "  A  nice  little  bit  of 
liver !  "  and  that  was  settled. 

Should  anyone  not  accustomed  to  these  islands  ask  why  the 
question  of  one  day's  rations  should  be  approached  as  though  it 
had  been  raised  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  mankind,  no 
answer  can  be  given  in  the  present  state  of  human  knowledge.  All 
that  can  be  said  is  that  an  equivalent  interview  is  going  on  in 
most  households  of  the  natives  every  other  morning,  or  there- 
abouts. 

In  time  stimulated  perspicuity  saw  a  light.  Shrewd  discrim- 
inative subtlety  was  on'  Aunt  Stingy's  face  as  she  said,  "  Why 
not  the  fowl  to-day,  ma'am,  and  stand  the  joint  over  for  a  day  or 
two?  Because  in  this  briling  weather  it  is  that  liable  to  smell 
faint ! "  Marianne  cogitated  deeply,  turning  the  pencil  in  her 
mouth ;  then  said,  "  If  we  were  to  have  Mrs.  Eldridge  to-day  in- 
stead of  to-morrow.  ...  It  doesn't  matter  which,  because  Mr. 

353 


354 

Eldridge  won't  be  back  till  Wednesday."  This  will  not  bear  close 
analysis;  but  Marianne  was  not  pricking  pins  at  a  tissue,  and  all 
purposes  were  answered.  When  the  children  went  out  for  their 
walk,  they  brought  back  word  that  Mrs.  Eldridge  would  "  come  in- 
stead of  to-morrow."  And  that  is  how  on  this  particular  Mon- 
day evening  these  two  ladies  are  agreeing  that  this  coffee  is  too 
strong,  and  there's  no  hot  water,  and  the  more  florid  one  of  the 
two  is  saying  that  she  must  speak  to  Step  toe  about  it. 

The  heat  of  the  weather  tells  differently  on  them,  which  has  to 
do  with  our  epithet  for  Marianne's  complexion.  Charlotte's  look 
is  rather  sallower  than  usual,  as  she  leans  back  fanning  the  full 
lids  of  her  half-closed  eyes.  She  is  not  bad-looking,  certainly — 
must  have  been  very  graceful  when  she  was  a  girl. 

The  coffee-incident  must  have  interrupted  a  conversation,  for 
the  sound  of  resumption  is  in  Charlotte's  remark  as  she  sips  it. 
"  I  should  write  "  is  what  she  says. 

"  Which  to  ?    Him  or  her  ?  " 

"Her.    No! — him.    I  should  write  to  him." 

"  Which  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  Him." 

"  I  don't  know  what  to  say." 

"  What  you've  been  saying  to  me  just  now." 

"Nonsense,  Charlotte!     How  can  you  talk  such  stuff?" 

"  Well ! — I  should."  After  which  neither  lady  spoke  for  awhile, 
but  seemed  to  be  thinking  over  points  raised.  Marianne  uneasily, 
and  even  with  an  occasional  impatient  jerk,  resented  as  selfish  by 
a  cat  asleep  on  her  knees ;  Charlotte  irrespectively,  but  as  one  en- 
joying some  internal  satisfaction. 

Presently  Marianne  spoke,  looking  curiously  at  her  friend,  as 
though  she  suspected  this  concealed  something.  "  I  wish  you 
would  say  plainly  what  you  mean,  Charlotte,"  she  said. 

Charlotte  answered  evasively.  "It  doesn't  the  least  follow  that 
what  I  should  do  you  ought  to  do."  She  had  on  Marianne  the 
sort  of  effect  the  ringed  snake  is  said  to  have  on  the  oriole — was 
sure  her  victim  would  jump  down  her  throat  if  she  bided  her  time. 
And  if  Marianne  did  this  of  her  own  accord,  she  herself  would 
clearly  be  free  from  all  complicities.  For  there  was  nothing 
Charlotte  was  so  clear  about  in  theory  as  that  she  did  not  wish  to 
mix  herself  up  in  the  affair ;  or  any  affair,  for  that  matter.  It  was 
curious  how  frequently  she  found  herself  abstaining  from  get- 
ting mixed  up.  In  this  case,  even  when  Marianne  said  point- 
blank,  "  But  what  would  you  do  ? "  she  still  replied,  "  Never  mind, 
dear !  What  can  it  matter  what  I  should  or  shouldn't  do  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  355 

"  Charlotte,  you're  unkind !  At  least,  you're  not  friendly.  You 
go  in  and  out.  First  it's  one  thing,  and  then  it's  another.  Sup- 
pose you  were  me,  what  would  you  do?  Write  to  this  girl,  and 
just  refuse  the  invitation?" 

After  all,  Charlotte  was  not  so  very  clear  about  what  she  would 
write.  "  N — no,  dear !  "  she  said.  "  I  don't  think  I  should  write 
to  her.  I  should  send  her  a  message,  through  him.  All  civility, 
don't  you  know?  Couldn't  leave  home  at  present.  Hope  some 
other  time.  So  nice  of  her  to  ask  you!  Best  thanks.  Kindest 
regards.  That  sort  of  thing.  But  writing  to  my  husband,  you 
know — the  rule  mightn't  hold  good  for  yours;  I  quite  see  that — I 
shouldn't  mince  matters." 

"  What  does  '  not  mincing  matters '  mean  ?  I  think  you  might 
speak  plain,  Charlotte.  Can't  you  say  what  you  mean?"  She 
puts  her  hand  up  to  her  head  restlessly,  causing  her  friend  to 
ask,  "Headache?"  To  which  she  replies  impatiently,  "Not  head- 
ache ! "  and  takes  it  down.  Charlotte  then  resumes,  with  much 
implication  that  the  use  of  her  husband  as  a  lay-figure  franks  her 
of  responsibility. 

"  I  should  tell  him  plainly  that  if  he  wanted  to  make  love  to 
fashionable  young  women  he  might  go  his  own  way,  and  I  could 
do  without  him  perfectly  well.  I  should  let  him  know  he's  not 
the  treasure  he  fancies  he  is." 

Marianne  looked  unconvinced,  incredulous.  "  Suppose  he  took 
you  at  your  word,  Charlotte !  "  said  she. 

Charlotte  laughed  out  scornfully.  "  My  dear  woman,"  she  said, 
"  John's  a  born  fool,  I  know.  But  he's  not  such  a  fool  as  that ! 
He  knows  what  he's  like  well  enough  to  know  that  this  sort  of 
young  woman  is  not  the  sort  to  give  me  a  case." 

"  Give  you  a  case  ? " 

"Stupid  girl! — don't  you  see?  A  case  for  divorce.  It's  plain 
enough  to  anyone  who  isn't  a  downright  fool.  A  telegraph-girl 
would  be  quite  another  pair  of  shoes." 

"I  suppose  I  don't  understand  these  things." 

"  Now,  my  dear  Marianne,  do  you  mean  to  say  that  if  you  heard 
that  your  Titus  had  been  lunching  at  Jules's  with  Lady 
Thingammy  What's-her-name,  it  wouldn't  be  quite  different  from 
a  telegraph-girl  and  an  ABC?"  Marianne  said  she  couldn't  see 
any  difference.  But  this  was  only  her  obstinacy.  Charlotte  con- 
tinued: "Well,  7  should!  And  so  would  the  jury.  Why,  I  know 
by  this — that  if  it  was  Jules's  I  shouldn't  lose  a  wink  of  sleep 
about  it;  but  if  it  was  a  telegraph-girl,  I  wouldn't  go  to  Clacton- 
on-Sea  in  August  and  leave  John  alone  in  London.  Not  with  my 


356  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ideas,  which  are  rather  strict.  Of  course,  one  isn't  a  French- 
woman or  an  Italian." 

"  What  are  their  ideas  ?  How  should  I  know  anything  about 
them?" 

"  Do  you  want  me  to  tell  you  anything  about  them,  or  not  ? 
That's  the  question.  ..  »  »  .Well,  of  course,  one  knows  what  a 
Frenchwoman's  ideas  are,  and  I  suppose  Italians  are  exactly  the 
same."  Strange  to  say,  this  shadowy  suggestion  in  a  dropped 
voice,  to  fend  off  the  dangers  of  empty  space,  seems  to  convey  a 
distinct  impression  to  its  hearer,  for  she  says,  "  Suppose  they  are, 
what  then  ? "  and  the  reply  is,  "  Well — I  suppose  you  wouldn't 
want  us  to  do  as  they  do !  Would  you  ?  " 

Mrs.  John  Eldridge  possessed  in  the  very  highest  degree  the 
faculty  of  making  it  understood,  by  slight  inflections  and  modula- 
tions of  voice,  by  pauses  in  the  right  place,  by  gestures  the  shrewd- 
est eyesight  could  not  swear  to,  though  the  dullest  could  never  re- 
main in  ignorance  of  them,  that  a  lady  and  gentleman  were  en- 
gaging her  attention.  She  had  manipulated  the  subject  in  hand 
by  a  dexterous  introduction  of  the  Latin  races,  who  are  notoriously 
immoral,  until  a  halo  of  profligacy  had  encircled  her  friend's  hus- 
band and  his  aristocratic  acquaintance.  Marianne  kicked  in  her 
soul  against  all  suggestions  of  the  kind,  but  with  a  misgiving  that 
her  friend  knew  more  about  "  this  sort  of  thing  "  than  she  herself 
did.  This,  too,  she  strove  to  keep  under,  not  to  allow  Titus,  whom 
she  believed  incapable  of  the  part  Charlotte's  management  would 
have  assigned  to  him,  to  be  attired  for  it  in  the  cast-off  garments 
of  some  reprobate  of  the  Parisian  stage. 

"I  can't  see  what  the  ways  of  French  people  have  to  do  with 
the  matter.  When  I  said  what  I  did  just  now  I  wasn't  thinking 
of  that  sort  of  thing." 

"  Then,  dear,  perhaps  you'll  tell  me  what  you  were  thinking  of. 
Because  I  can't  make  out,  for  the  life  of  me."  This  came  rather 
coldly  from  Charlotte. 

"It's  very  simple.  I  meant  that  if  Titus  is  tired  of  me,  I 
had  just  as  soon  that  he  should  go  away  to  someone  else.  And  so 
I  would — just  as  soon.  S-s-sooner !  "  If  Marianne  had  stopped 
on  the  penultimate  word,  there  might  have  been  no  breakdown. 
But  it  came,  with  the  intensification  of  her  courageous  little  false- 
hood; came  in  the  stereotyped  course  one  knows  so  well — first,  the 
failure  of  the  lips  to  be  still,  then  the  quickened  breath,  and  then 
the  final  irrepressible  tears.  Then  the  beseeching  to  be  left  alone 
— only  just  for  one  minute!  ...  all  will  be  right  in  a  minute, 
only  don't  speak  to  me,  please!  Go  on  talking! 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  357 

"  There ! — I've  been  a  fool,  and  I'm  sorry."  As  she  said  this, 
Mrs.  Challis  returned  to  her  pocket  a  handkerchief  that  had  dried 
her  tears,  certainly,  but  had  finished  by  taking  a  very  unpoetical 
part  in  the  transaction.  The  cat,  bored  by  her  demonstrativeness, 
had  left  her  lap  for  a  short  stretch  on  the  rug,  and  now  returned 
with  returning  quiet. 

Mrs.  Eldridge  took  a  base  advantage.  "  No,  dear ! — you're  very, 
very  brave  about  it.  I  know  just  what  I  should  feel  myself. 
Any  woman  would  feel  exactly  as  you  do.  .  .  .  Oh  no,  dear ! — of 
course  we  both  thoroughly  understand.  There's  nothing  really 
wrong,  and  nobody  is  to  be  suspected  of  anything." 

"  You  don't  see  what — I — mean !  "  said  Marianne.  "  You  never 
have,  Charlotte.  But  it  ought  to  be  simple  enough.  You  don't 
suppose  I  think  Titus  isn't  to  be  trusted  away  from  my  apron- 
strings  after  all  the  years  I've  known  him." 

"/  don't  know,  dear.  Don't  ask  me!  Men  are  men.  How- 
ever, if  you  can  trust  him,  I  don't  see  what  you  want." 

"  I  can  want  a  great  deal,  and  I  do.  I  want  him  not  to  care 
about  other  people  more  than  his  own  home." 

"  You  want  him  not  to  care  so  much  about  this  girl  ?  Isn't  that 
it?" 

"In  a  certain  sense,  yes!" 

u  Very  well,  dear.  Perhaps  if  there  are  more  senses  than  one 
in  the  business,  you'll  tell  me  what  they  are.  According  to  me,  a 
Bian  either  cares  for  a  girl,  or  he  doesn't.  I  can't  see  any  half-way." 

"  I  can  see  heaps  of  half -ways.  What  I  mean  is,  when  he  takes 
more  pleasure  in  her  society  than  he  does  in  .  .  ." 

"  In  his  wife's  ?  I  don't  see  that  we  don't  mean  the  same  thing, 
so  far." 

"  Then  I  don't  mean  that  at  all,  but  something  else.  What 
is  the  use  of  talking  if  you  always  twist  what  I  say  round  ? " 
Marianne  is  like  a  witness  in  the  hands  of  a  clever  counsel,  but 
with  an  advantage.  If  the  witness  resorts  to  the  use  of  a  bludgeon 
against  the  legal  rapier,  the  Court  interposes  to  protect  his  assail- 
ant. There  was  no  Court  in  Marianne's  case. 

Charlotte  retreated  into  the  entrenchments  of  forbearance.  "  I 
don't  want  to  quarrel,  dear ! "  she  said.  "  Suppose  you  write  the 
letter!" 

"To  her?" 

"  To  him.  Do  it  now !  You  may  just  as  well."  None  the  less, 
Charlotte  was  surprised — only  she  didn't  show  it — when  Mari- 
anne shook  off  the  re-established  cat,  and  rose  to  go  to  the  writing- 
table.  The  cat,  this  time  disgusted  beyond  words,  stretched  her- 


358  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

self,  and  weighed  the  comforts  of  divers  corners  available.  Mrs. 
Eldridge  could  have  afforded  one,  but  decided  that  cats  were  too 
hot  in  this  weather.  So  Pussy  had  to  be  content  with  an  angle  in 
sofa-cushions. 

The  long-expiring  light  of  the  summer  evening  had  been  good 
to  talk  by,  but  enough  of  it  was  not  left  for  letter-writing.  Never- 
theless, Mrs.  Challis  wouldn't  ring  for  the  lamp.  Candles  would 
do,  she  said.  And  having  lighted  them,  she  sat  down  to  write. 

A  fly  had  perished  in  the  ink  since  it  was  last  used,  and  had  to 
be  coaxed  out  gradually,  legs  having  got  left  behind  by  the  first 
drags  employed.  Also,  the  pens — so  described — consisted  of  a 
single  example,  which  was  a  very  long  pen  with  diabolical  cor- 
rugations at  its  shoulder,  and  a  terrible  sharp  point.  It  refused 
to  write  on  any  terms,  and  on  examination  was  proved  to  con- 
sist of  one  widowed  nib,  a  source  of  despair  to  the  scribe.  There 
were  no  other  pens;  at  least,  Harmood  had  put  them  somewhere. 
Never  mind! — there  was  a  fountain-pen  that  did  perfectly  if  you 
dipped  it  in  the  ink.  It  was  really  a  lot  better  that  way,  because 
then  you  didn't  inky  your  fingers  all  over.  The  experience  of 
many  among  us  is  that  escritoires  are  strewn  with  writing  ma- 
terials of  these  sorts,  especially  the  last. 

However,  there  was  no  doubt  of  the  fountain-pen,  once  its 
haughty  spirit  could  be  curbed  and  induced  to  submit  to  the  posi- 
tion of  a  mere  agent.  And  the  sounds  of  writing  come  presently 
from  the  writing-table,  mixed  with  the  curses  of  its  occupant,  who 
presently  discovers  that  she  has  been  writing  on  a  sheet  with  a 
"  limerick  "  on  the  back. 

"Never  mind.  Let's  see  how  far  you've  written."  Mrs. 
Eldridge  stretches  her  fingers  out  to  receive  the  letter  without 
taking  her  eyes  off  a  paragraph  she  is  reading  in  a  Daily  Mail.  She 
holds  the  letter  till  she  has  finished,  then  reads  it,  and  gives  an 
immediate  verdict.  "You  can't  send  that"  she  says. 

"  And  why  not  ? "  asks  Marianne,  a  little  nettled  at  this  rather 
cavalier  treatment  of  her  effort.  But  she  knows  she  has  not  the 
courage  to  rebel,  not  having  a  particle  of  faith  in  her  powers  of 
composition. 

"  You  can't  say,  '  Your  Miss  Arkroyd  has  written  to  me,  and  I 
won't  come,  and  you  know  perfectly  well  why.' " 

"Why  not?" 

"  My  dear  I   ...     However,  do  if  you  like." 

"Well,  then — I  shall"  This  was  mere  bluster,  of  which  Char- 
lotte took  no  notice. 

"  And  you  can't  say :  '  You  know  I  am  not  wanted,  and  both 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  359 

of  you  will  be  wishing  me  somewhere  else  all  the  while.'  Simply 
impossible ! " 

"  I  cannot  see  the  impossibility.  Titus  would  be  in  a  panic 
about  what  I  should  say  next.  I  hate  their  rooms,  full  of  people. 
They  always  make  me  nervous." 

Charlotte  sees  that  interpretation  down  to  her  companion's  level 
is  necessary.  "Rooms-full  have  nothing  to  do  with  it,"  she  says. 
"  He  will  think  you  meant  you  would  be  de  trop." 

"  Well,  and  what  does  that  mean  ? " 

Charlotte  coughed  explanatorily.  "  It  is  only  used  under  cir- 
cumstances of  three,"  she  says,  not  without  obscurity.  And  then 
adds,  as  a  full  light  on  the  subject :  "  One  has  to  go." 

"  Same  as  '  two's  company  and  three's  none,'  I  suppose  ?  But 
why  French  ? " 

"  It  means  more.  There  are  niceties."  And  this  lady  seems  to 
keep  back  a  suggestion  that  these  niceties  are  beyond  her  friend's 
range  of  French.  She  goes  on  with  a  roused  attention,  having1 
glanced  farther  on  as  she  spoke  last,  absently.  "  And,  my  dear, 
look  here!  You  can't  possibly  send  this:  'Why  can't  we  agree 
each  to  go  our  own  way?  Lots  of  people  don't  go  about  every- 
where in  couples.'  You  can't  send  that !  " 

"Well,  Charlotte,  I  shall  send  that,  and  I  think  you're 
ridiculous.  Why  shouldn't  I  send  it  when  I  mean  it?  If  Titus 
would  only  not  worry  about,  and  think  it  his  duty  to  say  things, 
these  people  wouldn't  want  me.  Why  should  they?  And  then 
perhaps  we  should  have  an  end  of  complaining  about  Steptoe's 
gravy.  I'm  simply  sick  of  it  all."  And  Mrs.  Challis  taps  with 
her  foot,  and  shows  a  feverish  irritability. 

Charlotte  keeps  well  on  her  higher  level.  "My  dear  Marianne, 
you  are  the  most  unworldly  baby!  Don't  you  see  the  interpreta- 
tion that  might  be  put — I  don't  say  your  Titus  would  put  it,  but 
he  might — on  '  Why  can't  we  agree,  et  cetera  ? '  If  I  were  to 
say  such  a  thing  to  John,  it  would  be  a  telegraph-girl  directly." 

Marianne  flushes  angrily.  "  Charlotte !  How  often  have  I  said 
to  you  that  I  hate  you  when  you  draw  comparisons  between  Titus 
and  your  John !  It  might  be  fifty  telegraph-girls  with  him,  but  I 
know  Titus  well  enough  to  know  ..." 

"  Oh !  "    A  slight  interjection,  but  it  checks  Marianne  half-way. 

"  At  any  rate,  he  has  never  deceived  me  about  anything  of  this 
sort."  The  flush  is  vanishing. 

"Not  exactly  of  this  sort — no!"  Now,  Charlotte  had  been 
watching  her  opportunity  to  say  this,  having  noted  that  the  ef- 
fect produced  by  Mrs.  Steptoe's  story  had  been  falling  into 


360  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

abeyance,  owing  to  the  subsidence  of  a  policy  of  pin-pricks  be- 
tween Mr.  and  Mrs.  Challis,  in  view  of  his  pending  visit  to  Royd, 
and  still  more  in  consequence  of  a  sufficiently  affectionate  fare- 
well at  his  departure.  Marianne  had  in  fact  been  gradually 
minimising  the  incident,  and  was  on  her  way  towards  asking  Titus 
straightforwardly  for  an  explanation,  as,  of  course,  she  ought  to 
have  done  at  first. 

It  is  quite  possible  Mrs.  Eldridge  might  have  kept  this  card  up 
her  sleeve  if  Marianne  had  not  nettled  her  by  the  way  she  spoke 
of  her  John.  She  may  have  provoked  it;  but  did  that  matter? 
She  was  not  going  to  let  anyone  else  pelt  him.  Anyhow,  she 
played  the  card,  and,  glancing  up  at  Marianne,  had  reason  to  be 
satisfied  with  the  effect  it  had  produced. 

Marianne  may  have  known  she  looked  white,  and  wished  for 
darkness  to  hide  it,  for  she  blew  both  candles  out,  and  returned 
to  her  seat  with  her  back  to  the  window.  The  cat  sighed,  as 
lamenting  the  selfishness  of  mortals,  and  resumed  her  old  place, 
now  again  available,  with  a  pretence  of  magnanimity. 

"I  shall  copy  that  letter  on  a  clean  sheet,  and  send  it."  The 
darkness  seemed  to  give  the  speaker  fortitude. 

"  Go  your  own  way,  dear !  I've  done  my  best."  Mrs.  Eldridge 
claimed  freedom  from  responsibility. 

"  You  know,  I  suppose,  that  I  spoke  to  mamma  about  that 
Steptoe  nonsense — the  photograph?" 

"  No,  I  didn't.    What  did  she  say  ? " 

"  Said  it  was  all  sheer  impossibility.  Said  Steptoe  had  been 
turning  the  cupboards  over  when  we  were  away  at  Easter,  and 
cooked  it  all  up." 

"  That  won't  do  us  any  good.  How  did  Steptoe  know,  the  name 
of  the  coal-merchant?" 

"  Saw  it  on  the  back  of  the  photo,  mamma  says." 

"  And  how  did  she  know  the  name  Verrall  ? " 

"Because  it's  Bob's  second  name.  Besides,  it's  on  a  brass 
plate  on  Kate's  old  portmanteau  in  the  trunk-room." 

"  I  can't  say  I  think  that  accounts  for  anything."  Mrs.  Eldridge 
pointed  out  two  or  three  weak  points  in  Mrs.  Craik's  explana- 
tion, and  condemned  it  as  worthless.  She  was  wrong.  The  ex- 
planation was  a  good  one  per  se,  but,  like  so  many  explanations, 
taxed  human  powers  of  belief  more  than  the  thing  it  explained. 
However,  no  one  who  has  the  faculty  of  selecting  his  creeds  ever 
stickles  about  the  trouble  one  will  give  him.  He  only  thinks  of 
the  advantages  it  will  bring  with  it. 

"Perhaps  it  doesn't  explain.    That's  what  mamma  said,  any- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  361 

how."  Thus  Marianne,  as  if  it  didn't  matter  much,  either  way. 
Then,  more  convincedly :  "  I  don't  believe  Steptoe  is  lying,  be- 
cause I  can't  see  what  she  has  to  gain  by  it.  Besides,  I  pulled  the 
photo  out  of  the  passe-partout,  and  it  was  gummed  in,  and  the 
name  on  the  back." 

"  Did  you  say  so  to  your  mother  ? " 

"  Yes,  and  she  said  I  must  have  been  mistaken,  because,  if  not, 
the  story  would  have  been  true." 

"  I  can't  see  " — Mrs.  Eldridge  is  talking  reflectively,  introspec- 
tively — "  I  cannot  see  why  your  husband  did  not  tell  you  all  about 
it!  Suppose  your  sister  was  married  to  this  man  first,  I  don't  see 
that  it  was  any  such  hanging  matter.  Unless  ..." 

"Unless  what?" 

"Well! — nothing,  dear.  That  is,  perhaps  I  oughtn't  to 
say  ..." 

"  Charlotte ! — that's  you  all  over !  You  know  you're  wanting  to 
say  all  the  time.  Do  speak  out  and  have  done  with  it!"  Mari- 
anne got  up  uneasily,  and  walked  from  place  to  place  in  the  room. 
The  cat  went  back  to  the  sofa  cushion,  and  resumed  her  task  of 
getting  a  little  sleep. 

Charlotte  means  to  say,  in  time.  Trust  her!  "You  know, 
dear  Marianne,  that  all  this  is  the  merest  speculation.  We  really 
know  nothing!  And  ten  to  one,  when  you  do  speak  of  it  to  Titus, 
he'll  be  able  to  clear  it  all  up.  Besides,  after  all,  it  could  only  be 
the  sort  of  thing  that's  always  happening,  and  one  says  nothing 
about  it  as  long  as  the  parties  get  married  afterwards.  ..." 

Marianne  interrupts  stormily.  "Will  you  have  the  goodness, 
Charlotte,  to  tell  me  what  you  mean,  and  not  beat  about  the  bush  ? 
You  can't  mean  that  poor  Kate  ..." 

"I  can't  tell  you  anything,  dear,  if  you  get  so  excited  (Your 
hair's  coming  undone.  A  pin? — here's  one.)  Remember,  I'm 
only  mentioning  this  as  one  of  the  possibilities,  and  I  don't  sup- 
pose it's  true.  But  if  it  were  ever  so  true,  I  don't  see  that  it  would 
be  anything  to  fly  out  about.  After  all  these  years!  .  .  .  Will 
I  tell  you  what  I  mean  ?  Yes,  dear,  if  you'll  be  quiet  and  listen." 

"Will  you  go  on?" 

Mrs.  Eldridge  braces  herself  up  to  consecutive  narrative,  as  in 
response  to  unreasonable  impatience.  "There  was  a  marriage. 
That's  understood — I  mean  your  sister's  with  her  first  husband. 
And  it  was  kept  dark.  ..." 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  talk  as  if  it  was  the  Criminal  Classes. 
Go  on!" 

"I   can't  if  you   interrupt.    Well!— Mr.   Challis  was   quite  a 


362  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

young  man  then,  and  a  friend  of  the  first  husband's,  and  she  was 
young.  You  see  ?  " 

"  I  see  their  youngness  would  make  it  all  the  worse,  instead  of 
"better.  If  it  was  true!  But  it  isn't."  At  this  point  Marianne 
gives  up  the  attempt  to  engineer  the  hairpin.  "  Can't  you  stop 
stopping,  Charlotte,  and  go  on?  " 

Charlotte  deserts  the  extreme  of  deliberation  for  irritating 
rapidity  and  conciseness.  "The  first  husband  may  have  been 
anything,  for  anything  we  know  of  him.  Only,  there  must  have 
been  a  reason  for  their  parting,  if  you  think  of  it.  Within  a  few 
months!  Now  suppose — don't  be  in  a  rage,  Marianne  dear,  it 
doesn't  do  any  good! — suppose  your  husband  was  the  reason! 
Of  course,  he  would  never  tell  you,  if  Kate  never  did.  ..." 

"I  was  a  child!" 

"I  don't  think  anything  of  that  Children  are  easier  to  tell 
than  half -grown-up  people.  Remember,  too,  as  time  went  on,  how 
much  harder  it  would  get  to  tell.  Fancy  his  beginning  to  speak  of 
it !  How  would  he  ?  Come,  Marianne ! "  And  Marianne's 
silence  admitted  that  she  felt  the  difficulty  her  husband  would 
have  had  in  publishing  for  private  circulation  an  early  trans- 
gression of  his  own — and  Bob's  mother,  please!  It  may  all  have 
been,  and  yet  Titus  may  have  done  rightly  to  let  bygones  be  by- 
gones. That  was  her  thought  at  the  moment,  but  it  jumped  gladly 
at  leave  to  go  when  further  speech  of  Charlotte's  brought  a 
respite :  "  Of  course,  the  obstacle  to  accounting  for  it  this  way  is 
the  divorce.  It  seems  impossible  there  should  have  been  a  divorce, 
and  your  mother  never  heard  of  it !  " 

"  Why,  of  course,  Charlotte !  What  nonsense  it  all  is !  "  Mari- 
anne is  greatly  relieved.  But  we  must  not  halloa  before  we  are 
out  of  the  wood.  Charlotte  had  a  reservation: 

"  Only  there's  just  one  thing — I'm  afraid  I  must  shock  you, 
Marianne;  only,  mind  you,  I  don't  believe  for  a  moment  that  it's 
true — just  one  thing,  and  that  is  ...  yes! — I'm  going  on  ... 
that  is,  that  there  may  have  been  no  need  for  a  divorce.  You  see  ?  " 

She  doesn't,  evidently.  For,  after  a  moment's  consideration,  she 
says :  "  If  there  was  no  need  for  a  divorce,  why  drag  Titus  in  ?  What 
nonsense,  Charlotte !  "  She  is  breathing  freely  over  it — too  freely. 

"  No,  dear — not  that  way !  You  don't  understand."  A  pause  to 
get  a  clear  start.  "Your  sister  Kate  and  this  man  were  sup- 
posed to  be  lawfully  married.  At  least,  the  coal-merchant  and  his 
wife  must  have  thought  so.  But  suppose  they  were  not!  Don't 
you  see,  dear  " — this  very  gently,  not  to  tax  her  hearer  overmuch — 
"  don't  you  see  that  then  no  divorce  would  have  been  necessary  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  363 

"  You  puzzle  me  so,  Charlotte !  Do  stop  and  let  me  think.  Say 
it  again."  She  opened  to  the  full  a  window  partly  raised  for  the 
heat,  and  found  the  sweet  air  from  the  Common  grateful.  For 
her  head  had  become  hot,  and  her  lips  were  dry. 

Charlotte  followed  her  last  instruction,  by  choice.  "  Try  to 
imagine,  dear,  for  instance,  that  your  sister  had  been  entrapped 
into  a  false  marriage  by  this  man,  and  that  he  discarded  her  be- 
cause he  was  jealous  of  your  husband.  You  know  if  he  had 
grounds  for  his  jealousy  your  husband  might  be  bound  in  honour 
to  keep  silence — especially  to  her  own  sister.  And  then  consider! 
— they  were  married  afterwards." 

It  was  beginning  to  dawn  on  Mrs.  Challis  that  in  the  little 
drama  her  friend's  imagination  had  constructed  her  husband  fig- 
ured as  a  licentious  youth,  a  traitor  to  his  friend;  and  a  dis- 
simulator, when  he  was  posing  at  her  mother's  house  as  an  honour- 
able suitor  to  her  sister,  his  only  redeeming  feature  being  his  con- 
stancy to  the  girl  of  whose  second  betrayal  he  was  the  guilty 
author.  While,  as  for  that  young  woman  herself!  .  .  .  Mari- 
anne's whole  soul  recoiled  from  the  semblance  of  an  indiscrim- 
inate Ztatson-monger  with  which  Charlotte  had  not  scrupled  to 
clothe  her.  The  intrinsic  impossibility  of  associating  such  an 
image  with  her  sister  made  her  feel  as  though  she  really  disposed 
of  the  whole  question  when  she  said,  with  perfect  naivete,  "  But 
this  was  Kate !  " 

How  perfectly  clear  and  exhaustive !  That  was  Kate — or  would 
have  been  had  there  been  any  truth  in  the  tale — and  Kate  was 
her  grown-up  sister  in  the  early  days  when  her  father  was  living, 
and  they  were  a  household.  That  was  our  Kate  that  was  just 
thinking  about  being  a  young  lady  when  she  herself,  Marianne, 
was  just  beginning  to  take  intelligent  notes  of  her  surroundings — 
our  Kate  that  knew  how  to  play  the  piano  and  had  a  governess — 
our  Kate  that  became  one  herself  in  a  modest  way  when  father 
died,  and  it  turned  out  that  Uncle  Barker  had  invested  her 
mother's  settlement  money  in  himself,  contrary  to  the  behests  of 
the  Lord  Chancellor.  How  in  Heaven's  name  could  a  thing  one 
knew  as  a  girl,  unlengthened,  become  an  immoral,  unprincipled 
woman,  like  in  books  and  newspaper-paragraphs!  Absurd! 

And  yet — may  not  this  be  a  question  as  hard  for  us  to  answer  as 
poor,  slow,  middle-class,  muddle-headed  Marianne?  Look  at  it 
from  the  other  side!  How  many  reprobates,  dashing  and  other- 
wise, may  there  not  be  who  began  good  and  sweet,  and  kept  so  till 
they  became  bad  and  putrid — can  even  look  back,  from  the  gutter 
their  last  stage  of  decay  is  on  the  watch  to  defile,  on  a  spell  of 


364  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

blameless  maturity?  That  ill-complexioned  thing  that  thought  it 
was  singing  as  it  reeled  from  the  pothouse  door  but  now,  was  once 
— maybe — a  savoury  little  maid  enough,  with  a  sweetheart.  What 
if  he  saw  her  at  this  moment  ? — saw  the  passers-by  shrink  from  her 
and  leave  her  a  clear  pavement? — heard  the  mock  approval  of 
London  humour,  seasoned  to  the  shameful  sight,  and  unashamed, 
"  Go  it,  old  Sairah  "  ? 

The  story  disclaims  imputing  all  these  thoughts  to  Marianne, 
or  any  of  them.  But  the  sum  and  gist  of  them  came  out — just  as 
clearly,  maybe  more  so — in  those  four  words,  "  But  this  was 
Kate." 

She  turned  from  the  window  and  looked  her  friend  full  in  the 
face,  in  return  for  "  What  if  it  was  ? " — which  was  the  answer 
she  got.  She  felt  angry  with  Charlotte,  who,  for  all  her  pro- 
fession of  belief  that  her  surmises  were  probably  baseless,  seemed 
to  be  always  supporting  the  one  that  ascribed  most  lawlessness  to 
her  husband  and  sister. 

"What  if  it  was?"  said  she.  "Everything  if  it  was."  She 
couldn't  argue  to  save  her  life.  But  she  dealt  with  dialectical  dif- 
ficulties in  a  method  of  her  own  that  was  quite  as  effectual.  This 
time  it  told  forcibly. 

"Don't  blaze  out  at  me  like  that,  Marianne,"  said  the  enemy. 
"/  can't  help  it.  I  suppose  everyone  was  somebody's  Kate  once 
— even  Jezebel  and  Judas  Iscariot ! "  The  selection  sounded 
trenchant,  and  no  Biblical  critic  was  at  hand.  "  Besides,  as  I  said, 
it  wasn't  a  hanging  matter,  at  the  worst." 

"  I  thought  you  said  you  were  strict,  Charlotte." 

"  So  I  am.  But  this  sort  of  thing  does  take  place,  and  one 
knows  it,  and  I  don't  see  the  use  of  going  on  nagging  for  ever." 
Marianne's  religious  feelings  prompted  her  towards  pointing  out 
that  the  Almighty  might  not  subscribe  to  this  view,  but  she 
was  not  quick  enough.  Charlotte  continued :  "  And  how  a  girl 
who  knows  nothing  can  know  if  a  ceremony's  done  correctly 
is  more  than  I  can  tell.  Look  at  vaccination — all  the  little  ivories 
exactly  alike !  Why,  you  may  be  vaccinated  from  a  mad  bull  and 
never  be  a  penny  the  wiser !  " 

Any  metaphor  or  analogy  makes  Marianne's  head  go  round,  and 
she  still  keeps  silence.  Charlotte  ends  with  consolation :  "  And 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  if  they  weren't  correctly  married,  it 
was  all  to  the  good." 

"What  on  earth  you  mean,  Charlotte,  I  cannot  imagine! " 

"Well,  dear! — I  should  have  thought  anyone  would  spot  that 
at  once.  Even  John  saw  that!  Of  course,  if  the  first  marriage 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  365 

was  irregular,  there  was  no  breach  of  the  Seventh  Commandment." 
Marianne  felt  a  distinct  relief  from  one  of  the  nightmare  appre- 
hensions about  her  husband's  past  that  Charlotte's  ingenious 
speculations  had  aroused.  She  and  her  friend  shared  with  a  large 
section  of  the  respectable  World,  strict  and  otherwise,  the  idea  that 
trespassers  who  jump  over  a  wedding-ring  fence  should  be  prose- 
cuted, while  poachers  on  unenclosed  property  may  escape  with  a 
caution. 

But  her  mind  was  not  capable  of  more  than  one  idea  at  a  time, 
and  in  dwelling  on  this  remission  of  the  imputations  against  him, 
she  quite  forgot  that  the  theory  of  a  victimization  of  Kate  by  her 
first  husband,  if  it  did  not  acquit  him  of  any  indiscretion  towards 
her  sister,  at  any  rate  altered  all  the  circumstances  under  which 
the  indictment  was  framed.  If  there  was  no  divorce,  why  select 
a  co-respondent?  Marianne  just  missed  the  important  point. 
Out  of  the  chaotic  cross-questionings  of  the  mystery  she  emerged 
with  one  false  fixed  idea,  that  her  husband's  reason  for  concealing 
the  story  must  have  been  his  desire  to  draw  a  veil  over  that 
Brighton  period  before  his  pretended  courtship  and  marriage.  Mrs. 
Eldridge  encouraged  this  idea. 

"  I  hope  you  see  now,  dear,  what  I  mean  about  the  letter," 
said  she,  after  some  more  talk,  embodying  the  foregoing,  more  or 
less.  She  pulled  the  letter  from  under  the  cat,  who  had  lain  down 
on  it,  and  read  again :  " '  You  know  I  am  not  wanted,  and  both 
of  you  will  be  wishing  me  somewhere  else  all  the  while.'  I'm  sure 
I'm  right  in  saying  you  can't  send  that.  If  it  was  all  innocence 
and  Paul  and  Virginia  and  Jenny  and  Jessamy  and  Arcadian 
shepherds,  I  dare  say!  But,  with  that  story  not  cleared  up!  My 
dear  Marianne,  do  be  a  little  a  woman  of  the  World.  .  .  .  Isn't 
that  my  cab?" 

Marianne  said  drearily:  "I  think  so.  They'll  tell  us."  Be- 
cause, although  Mrs.  Eldridge  made  things  worse  for  her  every 
time  she  spoke,  she  clung  to  her  as  the  only  person  in  her  con- 
fidence— for  she  restrained  her  communications  to  her  mother — 
and  as  one  for  whose  knowledge  of  the  mysterious  thing  called 
"  the  World  "  she  had  always  had  a  superstitious  reverence.  So, 
when  Harmood  announced  the  advent  of  the  cab — in  cypher,  as  it 
were ;  for  she  merely  said,  u  Adcock,  for  Mrs.  Eldridge,  ma'am  " — 
she  was  sorry. 

"  It  is  Adcock,"  said  Mrs.  Eldridge ;  and  Harmood  would  bring 
her  things  down  to  save  her  going  upstairs,  and  did  so.  During 
Hannood's  absence  the  conversation  could  be  rounded  off  and 
wound  up. 


366  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Am  I  to  send  the  letter  or  not  ? "  said  Marianne.  This  was 
concession,  for  had  she  not  flounced  her  intention  of  sending  it  in 
Mrs.  Eldridge's  face  half-an-hour  ago? 

"Do  as  you  like,  dear!  But  I  hope  you  won't.  That's  all  I 
can  say.  Now  good-night ! "  Charlotte's  lips  are  extended  as 
towards  a  farewell  kiss;  her  hands  tell  well,  anticipating  embrace, 
and  all  her  suggestions  are  graceful — as  a  lady's  may  be,  who 
terminates  musically  in  skirts. 

But  Marianne  wants  a  straight  tip  for  that  letter. 

"  What  am  I  to  say,  then  ? "  says  she  doggedly.  "  I  must 
write." 

"  Say  what  I  told  you,  dear !  So  sorry — too  much  wanted  at 
home  to  be  able  to  come  away  just  now — hope  to  see  Miss  Arkroyd 
...  or  Judith,  if  you  call  her  Judith  ...  in  town  before 
she  goes  away  for  good.  Just  a  civil-letter  sort  of  business! 
Don't  you  see  how  much  better  it  will  be  yourself?"  Harmood 
has  come  again,  and  is  tendering  a  shroud  from  behind.  Two 
hands  accept  it  gracefully  over  each  shoulder,  and  it  abets  the 
music  of  the  skirts. 

"  I  suppose  it  will,"  says  Marianne  doubtfully,  and  they  go  out 
to  where  Mr.  Adcock  awaits  them.  And  then  either  of  them  who 
desires  to  do  so  may  study  the  relations  to  one  another  of  a  very 
civil  man  with  a  flavour  you  would  pronounce  beer  if  encouraged 
by  an  expert;  a  four-wheeler  he  has  to  bang  the  door  of — you  are 
no  good! — or  it  wouldn't  shut;  a  horse  that  wants  to  be  at  home, 
and  a  summer  moon  doing  its  level  best  to  make  some  birch-trees 
down  the  road  look  like  silver.  It  is  overhead,  and  you  have  to 
crane  your  neck  to  look  at  it. 

Mrs.  Challis  did  so,  but  saw  nothing  in  it  to  make  her  eyes  and 
lips  less  dry  and  hot.  She  returned  to  the  drawing-room,  and  told 
Harmood  not  to  shut  the  shutters;  she  would  herself  ultimately. 
Whereupon  Harmood  asked  whether  she  would  like  anything. 
And  being  told  she  would  like  nothing  else,  thank  you!  said  good- 
night, and  was  soon  after  audible  passing  upstairs  with  the  plate, 
and  not  being  absolutely  cordial  with  Mrs.  Steptoe. 

Did  Charlotte  know  how  miserable  she  was  making  her?  So 
thought  the  poor  lady  to  herself  as  she  looked  out  at  the  persevering 
moon.  She  felt  feverish — and  revengeful.  Not  with  Charlotte, 
of  course;  a  little  aggravated,  perhaps — that  was  all!  But  this 
girl — this  Judith,  with  her  insolent  beauty  and  her  knowledge  of 
its  power !  This  anxiety  that  she  should  go  to  Royd — what  was  it 
worth?  Was  she  asked  because  it  was  so  clear  the  invitation 
would  never  be  accepted,  or  because  she  was  wanted  to  cover  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  367 

position?  One  or  the  other,  or  something  like  it — no  good  or 
honourable  motive!  .  .  .  Oh  no! — nothing  dishonourable,  of 
course,  in  that  sense — so  Marianne  reasoned  with  herself — but 
there  were  distinctions  of  honour  and  dishonour  in  higher  strata 
of  morality,  above  the  gutter-ethics  Charlotte  would  always  be 
harping  on.  And  yet! — suppose  there  had  been  any  truth  in  that 
Steptoe  legend,  with  the  worst  interpretations  on  it,  might  not 
Titus  have  concealed  another  self  all  along?  He  had  concealed 
something:  that  she  knew.  Why  not  many  things?  Why  not 
everything  ? 

The  condemned  letter  was  not  altogether  judicious,  but  its  very 
errors  of  judgment  might  have  led  to  plain  speech,  recrimination, 
a  storm,  and  a  reconciliation.  Anything  would  have  been  better, 
as  the  result  showed,  than  an  ill  constructed  epistle  Marianne 
wrote  in  the  end,  a  message  for  her  husband  to  pass  on  to  Miss 
Arkroyd  much  on  the  lines  Charlotte  had  suggested.  Too  many 
words  for  a  message,  too  few  for  a  letter  from  any  wife  to  a  hus- 
band under  circumstances  where  brevity  might  be  ascribed  to 
pique.  In  which,  too,  she  could  not  bring  herself  to  the  point  of  say- 
ing she  hoped  to  see  Miss  Arkroyd,  either  in  town  or  elsewhere,  be- 
cause she  didn't.  She  hated  Judith,  but  would  not  confess  the  rea- 
son to  herself.  So  the  letter  worked  out  as  nothing  but  a  cold  and 
civil  message,  refusing  a  very  cordially  written  invitation.  And  it 
was  all  the  worse  that  it  contained  a  few  lines  in  answer  to  Titus's 
last — not  an  unaffectionate  epistle,  written  promptly  on  the  evening 
of  his  arrival.  But  Marianne  was  a  truthful  person  when  her  back 
was  up,  and  wasn't  going  to  tell  any  lies  when  candour  tasted  sweet 
in  her  mouth.  So  she  indulged  in  a  word  or  two  of  postscript  on 
the  back  of  the  letter,  and  didn't  quite  like  it  when  re-read.  But 
really  the  text  was  just  as  bad  without  it.  Look  at  the  chilly  "  My 
dear  Alfred,"  and  "  yr :  aff :  wife  " !  She  fought  off  her  vacillation, 
helped  by  a  glance  at  Judith's  letter  and  an  allusion  to  her  "  dear 
husband";  closed  the  envelope,  directed  and  stamped  it,  feeling 
determined,  while  she  knew  under  the  skin  that  she  was  wrong,  and 
showing  a  proper  spirit. 

Then,  possessed  by  her  evil  genius,  she  must  needs  go  down- 
stairs, undo  the  front  door  and  walk  out  in  the  sweet  moonlight 
to  the  red  pillar-box  only  a  few  paces  off,  that  was  so  convenient. 
Then,  when  she  had  heard  the  letter  fall  to  the  bottom  of  the  empty 
box,  past  hope,  past  help,  past  cure,  she  was  sorry.  Then  she 
called  herself  a  coward  and  went  back  to  bed.  But  she  felt  like  a 
criminal  as  she  pushed  open  the  door  she  had  left  unhasped. 

What  a  many  miscarriages  proper  spirits  have  to  answer  for! 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

HOW  CHALLIS  MET  LIZARANN  IN  SOCIETY.  OF  A  LECTURE  THE  RECTOR 
READ  CHALLIS,  AND  ITS  EFFECT  ON  HIS  IMAGE  OF  MARIANNE.  HOW 
HE  HADN'T  BEEN  TO  ASHCROFT.  IT  WAS  AN  UNSATISFACTORY  LETTER 
THAT! 

THE  persistent  self-absorption  and  stunning  monotonous  clatter 
of  one's  fellow-creatures,  however  execrable  it  may  seem  when  one 
wants  to  predominate  over  them  by  the  legitimate  employment  of 
one's  superior  gifts — without  shouting,  you  know ! — may  be  not  un- 
welcome when  one  longs  for  an  excuse  for  silence,  as  Challis  did 
after  that  unsettling  interview  with  Judith — silence,  and  a  little 
time  to  think  things  over  before  any  further  speech  with  the 
source  of  his  disquiet.  The  more  row  other  people  were  making, 
the  better!  This  feeling  was  quite  consistent  with  susceptibility 
to  a  magnetism  which  needed  some  device  to  veil  its  nature.  He 
would  call  it  tea,  for  the  nonce,  anyhow.  Pie  made  tea  the  pretext 
to  escape  from  his  position  of  arbiter  without  rights  of  speech,  and 
left  the  disputants,  promising  to  return  forthwith,  and  meaning  to 
break  his  promise. 

He  made  the  most  of  the  hundred  yards  to  the  tea-camp,  nod- 
ding remotely  to  casuals  by  the  way.  He  looked  for  an  excuse 
to  avoid  joining  the  group  at  headquarters,  who  appeared  at  his 
distance  off  to  be  discoursing  brilliantly,  interestedly,  on  absorb- 
ing topics,  with  smiles.  He  knew  they  were  talking  nonsense 
about  nothing  particular,  and  was  glad  to  find  his  excuse  in 
Athelstan  Taylor  and  his  sister-in-law,  who  had  joined  the  party, 
bringing  with  them  their  own  little  girls  and  the  small  cockney 
waif  in  blue,  whose  aunt  was  Mrs.  Steptoe.  That  was  how  our 
Lizarann  presented  herself  to  Mr.  Challis. 

"  I  like  you  better  than  your  aunt,"  said  that  gentleman  can- 
didly, when  Lizarann  was  introduced. 

"  So  do  I,"  replied  Lizarann.  But  this  answer,  clear  as  its 
meaning  was  to  all  sympathetic  souls,  was  taken  exception  to  by 
the  Rector's  sister-in-law. 

"What  can  the  unintelligible  child  mean  by  that?"  said  she. 
"  Because  you  are  unintelligible,  you  know  you  are,  Lizarann !  " 

368 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  369 

"  Yass,  please ! "  said  Lizarann.  And  then  she  felt  when  peo- 
ple laughed  that  she  was  being  treated  like  a  child,  which  at  her 
age  was  absurd. 

Miss  Caldecott,  the  sister-in-law,  was  one  of  those  tiresome  peo- 
ple who  are  always  forming  grown-up  Leagues  against  children, 
and  making  it  distinctly  understood  that  these  leagues,  though 
ready  to  stoop  to  the  level  of  children's  understanding,  do  so  under 
protest,  and  with  reservations  as  to  their  own  superiority.  Miss 
Caldecott  paraded  hers,  greatly  to  Lizarann's  umbrage,  in  the  tone 
in  which  she  said,  "  We  do  not  yet  know,  my  dear,  that  Mr.  Challis 
has  an  aunt";  into  which  tone  she  contrived  to  infuse  a  sug- 
gestion of  respect  for  Challis's  family,  even  if  the  previous  gen- 
erations consisted  only  of  the  direct  line. 

Challis  refused  to  be  taken  into  the  League.  To  avoid  it  he 
stated  that  he  had  more  aunts  than  was  really  the  case.  He  went 
further,  and  ascribed  to  one  of  them  attributes  that  have  surely 
never  belonged  to  any  person's  aunt.  She  had,  he  said,  a  front, 
and  lived  on  tea-leaves,  which  came  out  on  her  person  as  a  kind 
of  stiff  black  net  which  he  had  the  impudence  to  say  he  believed 
was  never  removed  at  night. 

Lizarann  recalled  a  like  experience  which  she  thought  would 
bear  repetition. 

"  Bridgelticks,"  she  said,  in  a  loud,  outspoken  way  that  com- 
manded an  audience,  "  she's  a  hunkle  comes  out  a  Sundays  and 
Schristmas  Day,  and  gold  trimmings  to  his  coat,  and  brarse  but- 
tons, and  Bridgetticks,  she  could  count  up  eight  and  two  behind." 

"  You  must  try  to  say  '  uncle,'  my  dear,  not  '  hunkle,'  "  said  Miss 
Caldecott,  which  Lizarann  did,  meekly,  with  an  impression  that 
perhaps  she  had  claimed  too  much  for  Old  Shakey,  which  was  the 
old  man's  bye-name  in  Tallack  Street,  where  he  appeared  at  inter- 
vals. She  had  used  the  "h"  to  give  an  adventitious  force  of 
character  to  the  tremulous  relic  of  better  days  she  was  referring 
to.  She  wished  him  to  be  thought  of  as  resolute,  without  present- 
ing him  in  the  aspect  of  a  swashbuckler. 

"  What  do  you  make  of  him,  Rector  ? "  asked  Challis. 

"  I  know  all  about  him.  At  least,  Gus  knows."  Athelstan  Tay- 
lor had  appropriated  a  camp  stool,  that  he  might  accommodate 
Lizarann  and  his  younger  daughter  on  his  knees.  He  looked 
round  at  his  sister-in-law.  "Don't  you  remember,  my  dear?  Gus 
told  us  about  him.  A  sort  of  old  pensioner  chap ! ' 

Miss  Caldecott  remembered  him,  primly.  "Not  very  sober,  I 
fear !  "  said  she. 

Lizarann  joined  in  the  conversation.    "  Wunst  you  get  him  in- 


370  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

side  of  the  bust,"  she  said,  "the  sconductor  keeps  his  eye  upon 
him.  Yass! — All  the  way  to  Stockwell."  Lizarann's  confidence 
that  her  hearers  knew  the  world  had  something  very  pretty  and 
touching  about  it. 

But  Miss  Caldecott,  as  the  exponent  of  the  League — which  no 
one  had  asked  her  to  form — checkmated  Bridgetticks's  relative. 
"  We  won't  talk  any  more  about  him  now,  my  dear,"  she  said. 
The  smallest  shade  passed  over  the  Rector's  face.  However,  it 
didn't  matter  for  him.  He  could  tickle  Lizarann  slightly,  thanks 
to  his  position  of  vantage,  and  thus  avoid  being  misunderstood. 

With  Challis  it  was  otherwise.  The  effect  upon  his  mind  of  the 
action  of  the  League  was  that  he  now  felt  that  Bridget's  dis- 
reputable uncle  was  absolutely  the  only  topic  of  conversation  pos- 
sible. He  tried  in  vain  to  remember  that  anything  else  existed 
in  the  Universe. 

"Mayn't  we  hear  more  about  Miss  Hicks's  family?"  said  he, 
with  some  sense  of  proposing  a  compromise — not  to  run  counter  to 
the  feeling  of  the  League,  as  it  were.    Miss  Caldecott  said  some- 
thing confidentially  to  Space  about  not  encouraging  the  child  too 
much. 

But  she  did  not  understand  the  earnestness  and  good  faith  of 
the  said  child.  Lizarann  had  no  suspicion  that  the  gentleman's 
anxiety  to  know  about  her  friend's  connection  was  sheer  affecta- 
tion, and  hastened  to  supply  particulars.  She  proceeded  to  sketch 
the  Hicks  family,  laying  stress  as  much  as  possible  on  the  ex- 
cellence of  its  motives  and  the  sobriety  of  its  demeanour. 

"  Bridgetticks,"  she  said,  "  she  spinched  her  finger  in  the  jam 
of  the  door,  and  felt  it  a  week  after  in  her  shoulder- j 'int.  Yass — 
she  did!  And  Mr.  'Icks,  he  don't  take  nothing  till  after  gone 
twelve  o'clock,  and  then  mostly  at  meals.  And  Mrs.  'Icks,  she 
never  touches  anything.  Only  then  she  never  has  scarcely  no 
rheumatic  pains  to  speak  of." 

"  You  see  that  point,  Challis  ? "  said  the  Rector  parenthetically, 
in  a  quick  undertone,  over  the  heads  of  the  two  young  ladies. 
"  What  Mr.  'Icks  does  touch  is  part  of  a  course  of  treatment  for 
rheumatism."  Challis  nodded  the  completeness  of  his  understand- 
ing, and  then  the  little  girl  Phoebe,  who  was  listening  with  gravity, 
leaning  on  the  shoulder  of  her  father,  said,  "And  then  say 
why!" 

Lizarann,  prompted,  continued,  "Yass — she  hasn't!  Because 
of  the  nature  of  the  suds.  Because  she's  over  her  elbers  all  day, 
and  can't  roll  nothin'  \ip  high  enough,  not  to  keep  dry.  And  Dr. 
Ferris,  he  puts  it  down  to  the  lump  soda."  An  inquiring  look  of 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  371 

Challis's  produced  the  additional  information.  "  Yass ! — you  can 
buy  it  at  the  oilshop  just  acrost  the  road  from  the  Robin  Hood. 
Only  it  comes  to  less  by  the  quarter-hundredweight."  All  this  did 
the  greatest  credit  to  Lizarann's  power  of  storing  information. 

But  the  League  had  been  tolerating  this  sort  of  thing  too  long, 
and  its  Secretary  or  Solicitor — whichever  Miss  Caldecott  was — 
struck  in  with,  "  Perhaps  we've  talked  qui-ite  enough  now  about 
Bridget  Hicks  and  her  family,  my  dear!  We  mustn't  trespass 
too  much  on  Mr.  Challis's  good-nature."  Suspicion  of  the  sinister 
intentions  of  the  League  gleamed  in  Lizarann's  eye;  for  she  dis- 
believed in  its  representative,  while  admitting  her  goodness.  She 
might  have  ignored  her  intrusion  if  it  had  not  been  that  the  ex- 
traordinary sensitiveness  of  childhood  to  impressions  that  never 
penetrate  the  thick  hide  of  manhood  made  her  detect  in  Challis's 
disclaimer  an  understanding  between  himself  and  the  League — 
one  that  civility  had  dictated  reference  to  on  his  part,  but  that  he 
would  have  preferred  to  conceal.  Now  Lizarann  might  have  fallen 
back  disconcerted  on  silence,  even  on  tears,  had  it  not  been  for 
Athelstan  Taylor's  keen  understanding  of  children,  and  the  su- 
preme necessity  for  not  letting  them  know  allowances  are  being 
made  for  them.  He  said,  with  great  presence  of  mind  and  an  ap- 
pearance of  absolute  sincerity :  "  Old  Mrs.  Fox  sells  it — where  your 
Daddy  lives,  Lizarann.  She'll  let  you  have  twopenny-worth  if 
you  say  it's  for  me.  So  mind  you  bring  it  on  with  you  when  you 
come  home."  For  Lizarann  was  to  call  on  her  Daddy  on  her  way 
back  from  this  visit.  The  Rector  added  that  he  should  like  old 
Christopher  to  try  it,  and  this  confirmed  Lizarann's  belief  in  his 
bona  fides.  She  would  not  have  believed  his  sister-in-law,  who, 
with  the  best  intentions,  had  been  unfortunate  enough  to  incur  un- 
popularity by  throwing  doubt  on  the  Flying  Dutchman.  This  was 
her  chief  offence;  but  she  had  also  questioned  the  accuracy  of 
the  surgical  reports  of  the  boy  Frederick  Hawkins,  and  other 
minor  matters.  So  that  Lizarann,  while  she  acknowledged  her 
kindness,  took  a  low  view — but  secretly — of  her  intelligence. 

When  the  children  had  gone  away  dutifully  to  play,  discussing 
by  the  way  such  things  as  might  be  played  at  with  advantage,  the 
Rev.  Athelstan  said,  "  Now  I  must  be  getting  home,  or  I  shall  be 
late  for  Mrs.  Silverton."  Said  Mr.  Challis:  "Then  I'll  walk  with 
you,  Rector;  I  don't  want  any  tea."  Said  the  Rector:  "Then  I'll 
wait  till  you've  had  it,"  and  waited.  Presently  they  were  walking 
through  the  long  grass,  overfield,  having  said  little  till  the  Rector 
spoke,  as  one  who  resumes  conversation  in  earnest: 

"What  was  all  the  interesting  discussion  about?" 


372  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  As  far  as  I  could  gather — because  they  all  spoke  at  once — they 
agreed  in  condemning  the  measure  now  before  the  House.  But 
that  may  have  been  merely  the  common  form  of  political  dis- 
cussion. There  must  be  agreement  about  something  to  establish 
cordiality." 

"  Didn't  they  agree  about  anything  else  ? " 

"I  think  not — as  far  as  I  recollect.  But  really,  in  listening  to 
discussions  of  this  sort,  I  find  myself  handicapped  by  not  under- 
standing any  of  the  terms  in  use.  I  am  convinced  I  shall  die  in 
ignorance  of  what  Secondary  Education  is,  and  though  I  talk 
confidently  of  University  Extension,  I  am  painfully  conscious  that 
the  meaning  I  attach  to  it  is  founded,  not  on  information  of  any 
sort,  but  on  a  washy  inference  that  it  can't  mean  anything  else. 
So  it's  quite  possible  our  friends  were  agreeing  about  something, 
and  I  didn't  catch  them  at  it." 

"What  had  the  M.P.  to  say?"  asked  the  Rector. 

"  What  M.P.'s  generally  do  say.  Things  lay  in  nutshells,  and 
called  aloud  for  decisive  handling,  which  there  was  but  little  rea- 
son to  anticipate  from  a  venal  Press  and  an  apathetic  electorate. 
He  would  not  presume  to  arraign  the  judgment  of  any  fellow- 
mortal,  but  he  would  venture  to  call  our  attention  to  several 
things,  and  to  lay  before  us  a  great  variety  of  alternatives  with 
which  it  would,  sooner  or  later,  be  our  bounden  duty  to  grapple. 
He  dwelt  once  more,  at  the  risk  of  wearying  his  hearers,  on  the 
necessity  for  dealing  with  each  political  problem,  as  it  arose, 
in  a  truly  Imperial  Spirit.  I  believe  he  did  touch  upon  some 
aspects  of  the  question  of  religious  education,  but  then  he  also 
said  he  would  not  dwell  upon  them,  and  proceeded  to  consider 
everything  else.  I  have  a  very  vague  idea  of  his  views,  but  I  un- 
derstand they  were  luminous." 

Athelstan  Taylor  thought  he  could  detect  in  his  friend  to-day 
rather  more  than  usual  of  his  spirit  of  careless  perversity. 
Something  was  the  matter.  But  he  made  no  attempt  to  find  out 
what,  and  pursued  the  conversation. 

"  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  what  he  thought." 

"  It  would — in  view  of  the  difficulty  of  inferring  it  from  what 
he  says.  Mr.  Brownrigg  was  more  intelligible." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"  Brownrigg  pointed  out.  Of  course !  He  pointed  out  that 
the  subject  had  been  exhaustively  dealt  with  by  Graubosch  in  his 
twenty-ninth  volume.  The  forty-eighth  chapter  of  that  volume — 
ono  of  its  most  brilliant  passages — indicates  the  means  by  which 
all  the  objects  of  moral  and  religious  education  can  be  attained, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  373 

without  involving  the  instructor  of  youth  in  the  solution  of  a 
single  difficult  problem.  Strictly  speaking,  all  such  problems  will 
at  once  disappear  with  the  abolition  of  Morality,  Religion,  and 
Education — changes  which  form  a  fundamental  feature  of  the 
scheme  of  Graubosch.  But  each  of  these  will  be  more  than  re- 
placed. The  Great  Doctrine  of  Retributive  Inconvenience  will 
result,  as  an  inevitable  consequence,  in  the  Theory  of  the  Avoid- 
ance of  Retributive  Inconvenience,  which  will  attain  all  the  ends 
Morality  proposes  to  itself,  but  falls  very  short  of.  Religion  will 
cease  to  be  a  necessity  to  a  race  of  beings  to  whom  it  has  been 
pointed  out  in  their  babyhood  that  they  will  do  well  to  comply 
with  the  Apparent  Aims  of  the  Metaphysical  Check,  who  will  sup- 
ply more  fully  the  place  the  human  imagination  has  hitherto  sup- 
plied with  Deities  so  unsatisfactorily  that  even  now  monotheism 
is  not  quite  agreed  about  their  number  ..." 

"  Never  mind  me ! "  said  the  Rector,  who  thought  Challis  hes- 
itated. "  Go  ahead !  " 

"  Well — it  was  Brownrigg,  you  know ;  it  wasn't  me." 

"  It's  all  quite  right,  my  dear  fellow !  I  want  to  know  now 
about  the  Education.  Suppose  a  member  of  the  human  race  re- 
fuses to  pay  any  attention  to  the  Apparent  Aims  of  the  Meta- 
physical Check  ..." 

"  He  will  come  into  collision,  clearly,  with  the  Doctrine  of 
Retributive  Inconvenience.  In  the  case  of  young  persons,  on 
whom  a  certain  amount  of  Inconvenience  can  be  inflicted  without 
overtaxing  the  Salaried  Suggesters  who  will  take  the  place  of  the 
so-called  Educational  Classes,  an  exact  system  might  be  for- 
mulated. Brownrigg  gave  as  an  example  the  case  of  a  child  refus- 
ing to  comply  with  the  System  of  Hypothetical  Notification,  under 
which  it  would  be  required  to  address  propitiatory  sentiments,  or 
requests  for  personal  benefit,  to  an  unseen  Metaphysical  Check, 
whose  hearing  of  the  Application  the  Salaried  Suggester  might 
hold  himself  at  liberty  to  guarantee.  He  might  also — this  was 
Brownrigg's  point — endorse  his  suggestion,  in  the  case  of  a  child 
refusing  to  Notify,  by  the  infliction  of  a  certain  amount  of  In- 
convenience, tending  to  produce,  if  not  an  actual  belief  in  the 
existence  of  the  Metaphysical  Check,  at  any  rate  a  readiness  to 
confess  it,  which  would  be  for  working  purposes  exactly  the 
same." 

The  Rector  shook  his  head  doubtfully.  "At  present,"  said 
he,  "the  practice  in  this  village  is  to  threaten  rebellious 
youth  with  the  wicked  fire.  Would  Brownrigg's  substitute  be  as 
effectual?" 


374  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  You  remember  what  he  said  in  September — that  Graubosch 
meant  to  retain  the  Personal  Devil  until  the  new  System  had 
had  time  to  settle  down?  Just  as  people  keep  the  gas  on  till  the 
electric  light  is  a  certainty ! " 

The  Rector  laughed.  "You'll  make  me  as  bad  as  yourself, 
Challis,  before  you've  done."  Then  he  became  more  serious.  "  I 
would  give  a  good  deal,"  said  he,  "to  know  what  you  really 
think  on  matters  of  this  sort." 

But  Challis  was  persuading  a  pipe  to  light  inside  his  hat,  and 
no  immediate  answer  came.  One  vesta  had  perished  in  the  at- 
tempt. The  second  made  a  lurid  flash  on  his  face,  in  the  shadow 
of  the  protecting  hat,  his  invariable  grey  felt.  As  Athelstan  Tay- 
lor looked  at  him,  he  saw  again,  more  clearly  than  before,  that 
the  face  was  inconsistent  with  its  owner's  levity  of  tone  two  min- 
utes since.  He  negatived  his  own  impulse  to  ask  questions,  and 
waited.  Perhaps  it  was  part  of  a  growing  interest  in  his  com- 
panion that  made  him  mix  with  this  curiosity,  about  what  was 
going  on  inside  that  head,  a  wish  to  see  the  hat  back  on  it.  For 
the  sun  was  still  fierce  at  the  end  of  a  hot  June  day,  and  the  soft 
brown  hair  the  wind  blew  about  so  easily  seemed  to  have  little 
shelter  in  it  for  the  somewhat  delicate  skin  the  blue  veins  made 
so  much  show  on  below,  on  the  forehead. 

"  You  would  give  a  good  deal,"  said  Challis,  when  the  pipe  was 
well  alight,  "  to  know  what  I  think  about  the  religious  education 
of  children  ?  So  would  I !  "  It  was  a  disappointing  ending.  His 
hearer  had  expected  something  better. 

"  What  have  you  done  about  your  own  boy  ? "  said  he,  with  a 
kind  of  magnanimous  impatience.  "  Come !  That's  the  point." 

"  Nothing.  At  least,  I  have  sent  him  to  Rugby,  where  he  will  be 
brought  up  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England." 

"But  before?" 

"  I  left  him  to  his  mother — at  least,  his  aunt.  ...  I  told 
you.  ..." 

"  I  know." 

"  So  you  observe  that  with  respect  to  Master  Bob  I  have  pursued 
a  policy  of  well-considered  devolution  of  responsibility.  Perhaps 
I  should  say  of  evasion.  However,  I  think  I  may  lay  claim  to 
having  given  my  son  every  reasonable  opportunity  of  believing  the 
creeds  that  will  best  advance  his  interests  in  the  world.  He  has 
had  the  advantage  of  imbibing  them  from  a  lady  who  enjoys  the 
privilege  of  being  able  to  believe  what  she  chooses,  and  has  in- 
herited or  selected  the  tenets  of  the  well-to-do.  He  has  been  till 
lately  at  a  preparatory  Academy,  where  every  one  of  the  masters 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  375 

is  in  orders,  and  every  other  boy  the  son  of  a  Bishop.  And  now 
he's  gone  to  Rugby!  What  can  a  human  father  do  more,  in  the 
name  of  respectability?" 

"  My  dear  Challis,  if  you  want  to  make  your  son's  education  a 
text  for  a  sermon  against  worldliness  and  hypocrisy,  do  so  by  all 
means.  We  have  weak  joints  enough  in  our  armour,  God  knows, 
for  you  to  shoot  your  arrows  into.  But  let  me  finish  finding  fault 
with  you  first." 

Challis  slipped  his  arm  into  the  Rector's.  "  Go  on  finding 
fault,"  he  said.  "  Don't  finish  too  soon." 

"  I  won't.  It  seems  to  me,  my  dear  friend,  that  under  cover  of 
a  complete  confession  you  have  contrived  to  raise  issues  which 
have  nothing  to  do  with  the  question  before  the  House,  which  I 
take  to  be — what  is  a  father's  conscientious  duty  towards  the  child 
for  whose  existence  he  is  partly  responsible?  I  want  to  keep  you 
to  the  point." 

"  I'm  a  slippery  customer,  I  know.     Go  on." 

"  Do  you,  or  do  you  not,  think  a  parent  is  bound  to  supply  a 
child  with  a  religious  faith?  Failing  the  parent,  is  it  the  duty  of 
the  guardian — of  the  State?  That  seems  to  me  to  lie  at  the  root 
of  all  questions  of  religious  education.  But  our  question  is 
about  the  parent's  duty  when  one  exists.  Exempli  gratia,  your- 
self and  Master  Bob!  It  seems  to  me  that  your  policy  was  one 
of  evasion,  and  that  the  devolution  of  responsibility  upon  your 
wife  was  a  rather  cowardly  evasion.  Especially  as  her  responsi- 
bility could  only  be  for  her  own  children ! " 

Challis's  hand  pressed  the  arm  he  held  a  little  more  warmly. 
There  was  certainly  no  offence.  "You  are  perfectly  right,  Rec- 
tor," said  he.  "  I  took  a  mean  advantage  of  a  little  local  patch 
of  obscurantism  to  get  my  boy  inoculated  in  his  youth  with  a 
popular  form  of  Christianity,  in  order  that  his  father's  heretical 
ideas  should  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  advancement.  But  I  lay 
this  unction  to  my  soul;  that  if  ever  he  sees  his  way  to  a 
bishopric,  nothing  I  have  ever  said  to  him  need  stand  in  his 
way.  .  .  .  Oh  no! — there  is  no  idea  at  present  of  his  entering 
the  Church.  The  Army  is  engaging  his  attention  at  this  mo- 
ment— and  phonographs.  .  .  .  But  go  on  pitching  into  me  about 
cowardly  evasions." 

"  I  am  afraid  you  are  incorrigible,  Challis.  I  can't  help  laugh- 
ing sometimes.  But  for  all  that,  I  think  you  were  wrong.  You 
were  wrong  towards  your  wife,  because,  instead  of  helping  her, 
you  made  her  task  difficult.  What  can  be  harder  than  to  turn  a 
child's  mind  into  any  channel  with  a  strong  counter-influence,  as 


376  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

a  father's  must  needs  be,  constantly  at  work  against  one's  ef- 
forts?" 

Challis  smiled  in  his  turn.  "  It  was  Marianne,  you  see,"  he 
said.  "  I  can't  express  it.  The  position  was  harder  to  deal  with 
than  you  think."  He  then  went  on  to  tell  one  or  two  incidents 
connected  with  Bob's  early  indoctrinations  of  the  Scriptures. 
How,  for  instance,  when  Marianne  once  crushed  him  under,  "  You 
know  perfectly  well,  Titus,  what  the  words  of  Our  Lord  were,"  and 
followed  it  up  with  a  quotation,  he  had  remarked  in  the  presence 
of  Master  Bob  that  at  any  rate  Jesus  Christ  didn't  speak  English; 
and  then  she  had  flounced  out  of  the  room  white  with  anger,  and 
not  spoken  to  him  for  two  days;  and  when  she  did  at  last,  it  was 
to  declare  that  if  there  was  to  be  any  more  blasphemy  and  im- 
piety before  the  boy,  she  should  go  straight  away  to  Tulse  Hill, 
and  not  come  back.  Also,  when  he  once  innocently  remarked 
that  he  believed  there  was  now  a  tram-line  from  Joppa  to  Jeru- 
salem, she  had  become  very  violent,  and  accused  him  of  speaking 
of  Jerusalem  as  if  it  was  a  place  in  Bradshaw. 

The  Rector  considered,  and  then  said :  "  I  was  just  going  to  say 
Mrs.  Challis  must  be  unusually  ill-informed,  when  I  happened 
to  recollect  what  a  number  of  very  good  people  are  exactly  like 
her.  In  fact,  a  very  dear  old  friend  of  mine" — he  was  thinking 
of  the  Rev.  Mr.  Fossett — "  is  rather  shocked  when  he  hears  Our 
Lord  spoken  of  as  a  real  person;  and  with  him  it  isn't  exactly  ig- 
norance, because  he's  a  priest  in  orders.  It's  a  phase  of  mind 
that  seems  to  have  its  source  in  a  belief  that  nothing  can  be  both 
Good  and  Actual."  He  stopped  abruptly,  as  one  who  changes  a 
subject.  "  By-the-bye,  should  you  have  said  the  little  person 
looked  delicate — that  little  Lizarann,  I  mean  ? " 

Challis  had  stopped  to  think.  "  N-no ! "  he  said.  "  On  the 
contrary,  I  thought  she  had  such  a  good  colour."  On  which  the 
Rector  said,  "  Ah — well !  "  and  then  more  cheerfully,  "  Well — 
well! — I  suppose  it's  all  right.  However,  we  must  keep  our  eyes 
open." 

"  Isn't  the  child  strong?    She's  a  funny  little  party." 

"  Why,  no ! — they  say  she  isn't.  Isn't  strong,  I  mean.  Never 
mind!  What  were  we  talking  about?" 

"People  and  Scripture,  don't  you  know.  Things  being 
actual.  .  .  ." 

"I  know.  I  was  just  going  to  tell  you  what  dear  old  Gus — 
my  friend — won't  forgive  me  for.  I'll  risk  it.  Only  don't  you 
make  copy  of  it.  ...  Very  well! — mind  you  don't,  ...  It 
was  this.  Some  years  ago  I  was  urging  him  to  marry,  and  he 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  377 

pleaded  in  extenuation  of  his  celibacy  that  he  wished  to  model 
his  life  on  Our  Lord's  in  every  point  within  his  power.  '  It's  all 
very  fine,'  I  said.  '  But  why  do  you  suppose  the  Apostles  did  not 
model  their  lives  on  Our  Lord's?  Do  you  mean  that  they  all  led 
celibate  lives  ? '  Gus  said  this  was  almost  an  insinuation  that  Our 
Lord  was  or  had  been  married.  I'm  sorry  to  say  I  couldn't  help 
saying,  '  Can  you  produce  a  single  particle  of  direct  evidence  that 
Our  Lord  was  not  a  widower  when  John  baptized  Him  ? '  Gus 
hardly  spoke  to  me  all  that  day.  But  what  hurt  him  was  the 
realism  of  the  expression  '  widower.'  The  case  was  exactly  on  all 
fours  with  your  wife's." 

They  were  just  in  sight  of  the  Rectory,  and  Challis  had  to  get 
back  in  time  for  dinner.  So  he  shook  hands  with  his  friend,  re- 
marking: "You  will  go  on  blowing  me  up  another  time." 
Athelstan  Taylor  replied  with  a  cordial  handshake.  "You  de- 
serve it,  you  know ! "  and  pulled  out  his  watch.  "  I  shall  be 
in  time  for  Mrs.  Silverton,"  said  he.  But  who  and  what  that 
lady  was  this  story  knoweth  not,  neither  whence  she  came  nor 
whither  she  went.  But  she  occurs  in  the  text  for  all  that, 

Challis  wandered  back,  having  intentionally  allowed  himself 
time  to  do  so,  keeping  out  of  the  direct  path  to  avoid  meeting  peo- 
ple. He  liked  his  own  company  best. 

His  talk  with  Athelstan  Taylor,  which  else  could  claim  little 
place  in  the  story,  had  had  a  curious  effect  on  him.  It  had  brought 
back  vividly  his  early  days  with  his  wife.  As  he  sauntered  on 
with  his  eyes  on  the  ground,  choosing  rather  destructively  special 
whitey-green  heads  of  new  young  fern  to  crush  down,  or  cutting 
here  and  there  an  inoffensive  flower  with  his  stick,  his  ears  heard 
nothing  of  the  wind-music  in  the  trees,  his  eyes  saw  nothing  of 
the  evening  rabbits,  popping  away  and  vanishing  one  by  one — 
for  which  of  them  could  say  he  had  no  gun,  off  hand? — as  he  ap- 
proached. The  small  village  maiden  who  stopped  and  stood  still 
through  a  blank  bar,  and  dropped  a  semiquaver  curtsey  in  the 
middle  and  then  went  on  andante  capriccioso,  might  almost  as 
well  not  have  been  there  for  any  notice  Challis  took  of  her.  His 
thoughts  were  back  in  Great  Coram  Street,  in  the  dingy  London 
home  this  Marianne — yes!  this  very  Marianne — made  cheerful, 
more  than  cheerful,  to  the  industrious  accountant  of  ten  years 
since;  who  parted  from  her  each  morning  looking  forward  to  the 
return  each  evening  brought  to  the  grubby  domicile  he  associated 
with  so  many  blackbeetles  in  the  impenetrable  basement,  such 
smells  of  mice  in  spite  of  such  much  stronger  smells  of  cats,  and 


378  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  wails  and  choral  conclusions  of  these  last  in  the  backyard  they 
held  against  all  comers,  in  the  small  hours  of  so  many  foggy 
mornings. 

How  many  escapes  from  the  fog  without  to  the  firelight  within 
could  he  recall,  in  those  days  when  he  rose  from  his  office-desk 
without  a  dream  of  what  he  could  have  used  his  brain  for,  instead 
of  those  interminable  figures !  How  many  a  shock  of  trivial  disap- 
pointment to  find  that  Missis  wasn't  home  yet! — how  many  an 
insignificant  reviving  thrill  of  contentment  when  Missis's  knock 
followed  near  upon  his  own  arrival  and  his  thwarted  expectation! 
For  now  and  again  it  must  happen  to  a  man  that  some  woman 
he  has  no  passionate  love  for,  pedantically  speaking,  shall  grow 
round  his  heart  and  make  the  comfort  of  his  life.  That  was  the 
sort  of  thing  that  had  come  to  pass  in  the  case  of  Marianne  and 
Alfred  Challis.  And  now,  as  he — the  flattered  guest  of  folk  he 
then  had  never  thought  to  sit  at  meat  with — passed  up  the  great 
beech-avenue  to  the  house,  respectfully  saluted  by  a  great  game- 
keeper, a  Being  who,  in  those  older  years,  would  simply  have 
spurned  him,  his  thoughts  had  all  gone  back  to  the  rosy,  if  rather 
short-tempered  girl  who  then  seemed  plenty  for  his  life,  and  might 
surely  have  remained  so,  only  .  .  .  only  Challis  couldn't  finish 
the  sentence.  Now,  why  was  he,  in  his  own  mind,  commenting  a 
moment  after  on  the  tnappropriateness  of  two  lines  of  Browning 
that  had  come  into  it : 

"...    Strange,   that  very  way 
Love    begun!     I  as  little  understand 
Love's  decay." 

He  resented  their  intrusion.  Who  would  dare  to  say  his  affec- 
tion for  Marianne  was  not  what  it  had  always  been?  It  was — 
he  would  swear  it! — and  that  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Marianne, 
look  you,  was  not  now  what  she  was  in  those  days. 

How  and  when  had  the  change  come  over  things?  He  was  on 
the  alert  to  keep  Judith  out  of  the  answer  to  this  question.  He 
must  see  to  that,  or  Unfairness,  that  was  in  the  air,  would  twist 
awry  the  admiration  of  her  beauty  that  was  all  mankind's — 
womankind's,  for  that  matter,  jealousy  apart! — and  put  a  miscon- 
struction on  his  simplest  actions,  his  most  obvious  feelings.  He 
could  have  held  his  head  up  better,  true  enough,  over  this  passage 
of  his  analytical  self-torment,  if  only  it  had  not  been  for  that  un- 
happy revelation  of  unspoken  suspicion,  by  the  river  there,  not 
two  hours  since.  But  be  fair! — be  fair!  It  was  unspoken,  at 
least!  Who  had  said  anything?  As  he  asked  the  question  of  him- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  379 

self,  Challis  wiped  from  his  brow  perspiration  he  ascribed  to  the 
weather ! 

Did  he  not  know  of  old  how  often  he  had  deceived  himself? 
Might  not  all  this  be  self-delusion,  too  ?  At  least,  he  had  as  good  a 
vantage-ground  as  the  man  to  whom  some  woman  may  often  say, 
truly :  "  You  have  looked  love,  and  there  has  been  love  in  the 
pressure  of  your  hand,  in  the  tone  of  your  voice.  But  I  cannot 
indite  you.  Live  safe  behind  your  equivocations."  Nay,  he  was 
safer  than  such  a  one!  For  in  his  case  the  more  he  could  ignore 
love,  the  better  he  would  discharge  his  duty  to  Judith.  The 
other  man  would  be  the  greater  sneak,  the  more  he  did  so. 

But  the  question — the  question!  It  was  still  unanswered. 
When  did  the  change  come  over  Marianne?  Oh,  he  knew  per- 
fectly well!  It  was  from  the  day  when  he  began,  to  all  seeming 
at  her  request,  to  go  out  into  this  accursed  Society  without  her. 
Very  well,  then! — it  was  all  mere  glamour,  the  whole  thing.  Let 
him  do  now  what  he  should  have  done  at  first — insist  on  her 
being  his  companion,  among  his  kind  as  well  as  in  his  home. 
Then  would  the  old  Marianne  come  back,  and  all  would  be  well. 

So  by  the  time  he  was  two-thirds  through  the  avenue,  his 
thoughts  had  worked  back  into  his  old  existence,  and  taken  him 
with  them.  If  only  his  knowledge  of  his  surroundings  in  his  daily 
life  at  home  would  bear  him  out,  and  help  him  to  keep  at  bay  this 
image  of  Judith  that  forced  itself  upon  him  now — this  image  of 
her  as  she  stood  in  the  sunset  light  last  September,  just  on  this 
very  spot! 

What  he  recognized  at  once  as  the  nose  of  a  large  grey  boar- 
hound  touched  him  gently,  and  he  turned.  There  stood  Saladin, 
satisfied  to  all  seeming  that  what  he  had  smelt  was  in  order,  but 
content  to  take  no  further  steps.  Challis  glanced  round,  expect- 
ing to  see  the  dog's  mistress;  in  a  sense  rather  afraid  to  do  so. 
She  was  near  at  hand,  a  few  paces  from  the  pathway,  and  her  per- 
fect self-possession  reassured  him. 

"  I  never  told  Saladin  to  disturb  your  reverie,  Mr.  Challis,"  she 
said,  quite  easily,  and  with  deliberation.  "  The  darling  acted 
on  his  own  responsibility."  Saladin,  hearing  his  own  name, 
seemed  to  think  he  had  leave  to  go,  and  trotted  on,  giving  atten- 
tion to  tree-trunks  and  the  like.  Challis  had  to  say  something. 

"  Are  we  not  late  for  dinner  ? "  was  what  it  came  to. 

"  I  believe  we  are,  but  it  never  matters.  Did  you  get  your  let- 
ter?" 

"No— I  got  no  letter.     What  letter?" 


380  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Haven't  you  been  up  at  the  house  ?  It  was  there  when  I  went 
back.  I  thought  it  looked  like  your  wife's  handwriting.  I  hope 
it's  to  say  we  shall  see  her  on  Saturday." 

"I  hope  so,  too."    But  Challis  wasn't  sanguine. 

No  pretence  that  no  embarrassment  exists  between  two  people, 
however  determined,  can  do  more  than  encourage  a  hope  that  a 
modus  vivendi  may  be  found.  These  two  persevered  in  theirs,  be- 
cause each  hoped  for  a  working  pretext  that  would  carry  Challis's 
visit  through,  without  further  useless  complications,  and  this 
one  of  Marianne  was  a  good  one  to  make  a  parade  of  their  detach- 
ment about.  See  how  anxious  we  both  are  to  emphasize  the  per- 
fect self-possession  a  friendship  like  ours  allows! — was  what  it 
seemed  to  say.  Each  knew  it  was  a  pretext,  but  each  was  loyally 
ready  to  accept  the  other's  belief  in  it  as  a  reality. 

So  when  Judith  said  those  last  words  of  hers,  Challis  went  so 
cordially  through  the  form  of  believing  her  in  earnest  that  he 
powerfully  helped  the  image  he  had  set  his  mind  to  construct 
of  a  Marianne  based  on  his  impressions — illusions,  if  you  must 
have  it  so! — of  ten  years  past.  Conversation  that  followed  on 
the  way  to  the  house,  artificial  though  it  might  be,  all  tended 
towards  a  cheap  local  apotheosis  of  Marianne,  with  a  beneficial 
side-influence  on  her  husband's  disposition  to  idealize  her.  Thus 
Judith :  "  Of  course,  a  change  would  do  her  so  much  good.  House- 
keeping is  tiresome  work." 

"Yes,"  said  Challis.  "It's  wearing!  And  if  you  understand 
•what  I  mean,  it  makes  her  unlike  herself." 

"  Oh,  I  understand  so  exactly.  Everyone  would — every  woman, 
I  mean.  It  has  nothing  to  do  with  ill-temper." 

"  Nothing  whatever !  "  Challis  made  the  most  of  this.  "  There 
isn't  a  better-tempered  creature  in  the  world  than  Polly  Anne." 
He  called  her  a  creature,  though,  to  keep  the  position  properly 
qualified.  "  And  one  knows  what  children  are." 

"They  are  darling  little  people."  Judith  yawned  slightly. 
"But  they  are  nicest  when  you  know  them  as  acquaintances. 
Too  much  intimacy  palls.  Unless  they  are  very  nice  children.  I 
am  sure  yours  are.  But  all  the  same,  Marianne  would  be  the  bet- 
ter for  a  change."  And  so  on.  But  there  was  very  little  life  in 
this  talk. 

None  the  less,  Challis  was  feeling  good  about  his  wife,  when  he 
reached  the  house  looking  forward  to  finding  Marianne's  letter 
awaiting  him,  and  carried  it  up  into  his  room  to  read  it.  He  was 
more  curious  to  read  it  than  to  wait  for  the  arrival  of  the  motor, 
•whose  hoot  had  just  become  audible  from  somewhere  near  the 


381 

park-gate,  a  mile  off.  Saladin  immediately  started  at  a  gallop 
either  to  sanction  or  condemn  it,  and  Judith  lingered,  awaiting 
its  arrival. 

"  I  see  Mr.  Challis  didn't  go  to  Ashcroft,"  is  what  Sibyl  says 
first  to  her  sister.  It  refers  to  a  projected  excursion  a  full  day 
long,  which  had  been  cancelled  after  the  departure  of  the  motor  in 
the  morning. 

Judith  looks  ostentatiously  indifferent.  "  No  one  went,"  she 
says.  "  It  was  given  up.  But  how  came  you  to  know  ? " 

"  That  Mr.  Challis  didn't  go  ?  We  saw  you  from  the  Links, 
walking  together  in  the  avenue." 

Judith  turns  with  handsome  languor  to  Lord  Felixthorpe,  the 
other  occupant  of  the  motor.  "  Did  she  ?  "  she  says.  "  Did  you  ? 
I  mean."  Sibyl  says :  "  Thank  you  for  doubting  my  word  I  The 
avenue  is  visible  from  the  Links." 

His  lordship  is  deliberate,  as  usual.  The  answer  to  Judith's 
first  question  is,  he  says,  in  the  affirmative;  to  the  second,  in  the 
negative.  Identification,  even  of  eminent  authors,  at  a  distance 
in  an  evening  light,  is  difficult  when  a  time-limit  is  fixed  by  the 
rapid  locomotion  of  the  observer.  Sibyl's  comment,  in  an  under- 
tone, Judith  understands  to  be  a  caution  against  prosiness.  But  a 
respectful  reference  by  Elphinstone  to  the  many  minutes  ago  that 
the  first  gong  sounded  causes  a  hurried  flight  to  dress. 

Challis  felt  good  about  his  wife  as  he  opened  her  letter;  and  the 
feeling  grew  rather  than  lessened  when  he  saw  how  short  it  was. 
She  must  be  coming,  that  was  clear!  But  the  satisfaction  in  his 
face  died  out  as  his  eye  caught  the  "  Yr :  aff :  wife n  at  its  con- 
clusion. He  read  the  two  ill-covered  pages  twice  and  again  be- 
fore he  threw  it  down  with  an  angry  "  Humph ! "  and  set  himself 
to  make  up  for  lost  time  with  his  toilet. 

He  only  just  succeeded  in  scrambling  into  his  coat  in  time  for 
the  second,  or  heart-whole,  dinner-bell.  All  right ! — he  would  run, 
directly.  But  it  would  only  make  him  a  minute  late  to  glance 
once  more  at  that  letter.  Besides,  he  could  do  it  as  he  went  down- 
stairs. He  did  so,  and  ended  by  pocketing  it  just  in  time  to  appear 
last  in  the  drawing-room,  apologetic. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

HOW  CHALLIS  HAD  A  NEW  NEIGHBOUR  AT  DINNER  AND  METAPHYSICS 
AFTER.  HOW  HE  WAS  GUILTY  OF  EAVESDROPPING,  AND  MET  MISS 
ARKROYD  AFTER  IN  A  LITTLE  GARDEN  CALLED  TOPHET.  A  FOOL'S 
PASSION.  WHAT  ABOUT  BOB? 

THAT  was  a  very  fortunate  interview  in  the  park-avenue  between 
Challis  and  Miss  Arkroyd.  If  their  sequel  to  that  half-hour  be- 
fore they  joined  the  tea-party,  when  they  stood  hand-in-hand  on 
the  edge  of  a  volcano,  had  been  a  stiff  meeting  in  society,  the  posi- 
tion would  have  become  a  rigid  one;  its  joints  would  have  ossified. 
Some  may  hold  that  it  would  have  been  best  that  they  should  do  so, 
and  that  the  lubrication  of  this  interview  was  really  unfortunate. 
It  depends  on  how  one  looks  at  it.  Efficacious  it  certainly  was. 

So  efficacious  that  Challis  almost  felt  at  liberty  to  be  sorry  that 
Judith  was  moved  to  the  far  end  of  the  long  table  at  dinner, 
beyond  his  range  of  communication.  He  grudged  the  geometrical 
distance  between  them,  while  he  acknowledged  their  moral  or 
spiritual  eloignement.  He  had  to  confess  to  his  regret  when  a 
fresh  dress  she  had  on  that  evening  rustled  and  glittered — it  was 
all  sparks  and  flashes — past  the  place  she  occupied  the  evening  be- 
fore. "  We  move  up,  like  the  Hatter  and  the  Dormouse,"  said  she 
to  her  partner. 

The  house-party  had  become  enormous;  indeed,  some  of  it  had 
oozed  out  into  an  adjoining  apartment,  and  had  a  little  round 
table  all  to  itself — which  it  may  be  said  to  have  forgotten,  for  it 
made  a  great  noise. 

Challis's  own  flank-destinies  for  this  dinner  were  an  elderly 
young  lady  with  a  bridge  to  her  nose — a  county  family  in  herself 
— whom  he  had  protected  through  the  dangerous  passage  from  the 
drawing-room;  and  the  extraneous  chit,  Lady  Henrietta  Mount- 
tullibardine.  The  latter  had  been  provided  with  a  counter-chit, 
who  was  always  spoken  of  as  Arthur,  and  seemed  to  be  many 
people's  cousin.  The  former  had  a  powerful  pair  of  eyeglasses 
on  a  yard-arm,  or  sprit,  workable  from  below;  these,  Challis 
noticed,  were  manoeuvred  so  as  to  leave  the  bridge  free.  He  im- 
puted powder,  or  something  that  might  come  off,  to  its  owner. 
She  seemed  to  have  been  very  carefully  prepared  to  go  into  So- 

382 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  383 

ciety,  and  to  look  down  on  it  now  that  she  had  arrived.  But  she 
had  to  be  talked  to  about  something  within  its  confines,  and  Chal- 
lis  had  to  find  out  what. 

"  I  wonder  what  the  brilliant  stuff  is  called,"  said  he,  therefore. 
Judith's  dress  was  the  stuff. 

"  Sequin  net  is  the  name,  I  believe."  This  suggested  somehow 
that  the  stuff's  sphere  was  one  grade  below  the  speaker's. 

"  How  much  is  a  sequin  ? "  asked  Challis. 

"  It  is  not  an  expensive  material,"  said  the  lady. 

"  I  don't  want  a  dress  for  myself,"  said  Challis. 

"  Oh,  indeed ! "  said  the  lady.  Settlements  ensued.  And  then 
Challis's  other  neighbour  addressed  him. 

"  They  are  in  the  other  room  this  evening,"  said  the  chit.  Her 
remark  related  to  a  mutual  confidence  between  herself  and  Chal- 
lis, begun  on  the  lawn  on  the  day  of  his  arrival.  They  never 
spoke  of  anything  else. 

"  I  can  hear  them,"  said  he.  "  They're  making  noise  enough. 
But  I  thought  they  had  quarrelled  this  morning  ? " 

"This  morning — oh  yes!"  This  was  very  empresse.  "But 
they  made  that  up  long  ago!" 

"When  do  they?  .  .  .  when  are  they?  .  .  .  when  will 
it?  .  .  .  Clear,  please!  Oh  no!— that'll  do  beautifully.  I 
meant  thick."  This  was  to  the  servant,  respecting  soup. 

"I'm  so  afraid  it  never  will!    Do  you  know,  I  really  am!" 

"  Instances  are  not  wanting  of  young  ladies  and  gentlemen  who 
haven't  got  married.  .  .  .  Hock,  thank  you !  " 

"  Of  course!  But  they  always  do,  if  they  can.  Don't  they  now, 
Mr.  Challis?" 

"  I  admit  it.  Unless  they  meet  with  someone  they  like  better. 
Of  course,  that  does  happen." 

"  Oh  yes — of  course!  But  then  it  only  matters  when  it  isn't 
both."  Challis,  on  the  watch  for  copy,  noticed  that  whenever  this 
chit  italicized  a  word — which  was  frequently — she  opened  her  large 
blue  eyes  as  far  as  possible. 

"  You  express  it  to  perfection.  When  it's  both,  it  doesn't  mat- 
ter the  least.  But  this  time  it's  neither,  so  far ! " 

"  Oh  no ! — they  can't  look  at  anyone  else." 

"  Nothing  can  be  more  satisfactory.  But  why  shouldn't  it?  .  .  . 
why  shouldn't  they?  ..." 

"  Oh  dear !  I'm  so  afraid  they  never  will.  Because  he  has  only 
his  pay,  and  she  has — nothing!"  Human  eyes  have  only  limited 
powers  of  opening,  and  the  speaker's  had  done  all  they  could. 

"Couldn't  a  rich  aunt  settle  something  on  them,  or  someone 


384  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

place  a  fund  at  their  disposal?  Or  something  of  that  sort?  .  .  . 
What  a  shindy  they  are  making!  .  .  .  Not  before  Christmas." 
This  was  because  his  left-hand  neighbour  had  said  sternly :  "  When 
is  your  next  book  coming  out,  Mr.  Challis  ?  " 

But  the  chit  had  a  secret  knowledge  of  the  vera  causa  of  the 
riot  in  the  next  room,  when  three  chits  and  as  many  counter-chits, 
uncontrolled,  had  the  small  round  table  to  themselves.  She  knew 
exactly  what  they  were  doing — trying  to  pick  up  tumblers  upside 
down,  like  this! — "this"  being  the  thumb  on  one  side,  and  one 
finger  only  on  the  top. 

"  I  have  forgotten  when  your  last  book  came  out,  Mr.  Challis." 
This  left-hand  neighbour  seemed  reproachful.  But  Challis 
couldn't  help  it.  "  Just  eight  weeks  ago,"  said  he. 

A  lull  came  in  the  next  room,  with  the  young  soldier's  voice 
audible  in  it,  "  Now  all  together,  or  it  doesn't  count !  "  Some  sort 
of  wager  was  being  put  to  the  test.  Challis's  chit  murmured  in 
the  moments  of  suspense  that  followed,  "  They  broke  several  yes- 
terday in  the  billiard-room."  Challis,  amused,  waited  for  the  in- 
evitable smash. 

It  came,  and  was  a  grand  one.  And  the  chorus  of  contrition 
and  apology  from  the  culprits  was  only  equalled  by  their  indigna- 
tion at  the  way  the  Laws  of  Nature  had  proved  broken  reeds.  If 
there  was  one  thing  more  than  another  that  the  student  of 
dynamics  could  not  have  credited,  it  was  that  under  the  circum- 
stances a  single  tumbler  should  have  been  broken.  Challis  per- 
ceived that  Lady  Arkroyd  spoke  sotto  voce  to  Mr.  Elphinstone, 
who,  he  thought,  replied,  "  Plenty,  your  ladyship.  They  came  this 
morning."  Then  followed  a  fine  exhibition  of  dexterity  in  the 
rapid  collection  and  removal  of  broken  glass.  Challis  thought  to 
himself,  but  did  not  say  so,  that  it  reminded  one  of  being  on 
board  ship. 

The  chit  had  done  her  duty  by  Mr.  Challis,  and  now  deserted 
him.  Arthur  had  done  his  by  Mrs.  Ramsey  Tomes,  on  his  other 
flank,  who  had  told  him  she  wasn't  quite  sure  if  Mr.  Tomes  ap- 
proved of  football.  She  was  almost  certain  he  thought  young  men 
gave  up  too  much  time  to  rowing,  and  cricket,  and  lawn-tennis, 
and  cycling,  and  everything  else,  and  perfectly  certain  he  didn't 
disapprove  of  anti-vivisection  or  anti-vaccination,  but  she  wasn't 
quite  sure  which.  She  was  not  a  gifted  person,  and  was  quite  un- 
able to  keep  pace  with  her  husband's  powerful  mind.  She  had 
been  freely  spoken  of  before  now,  by  heedless  linguists,  as  a  Jug- 
gins. Arthur  deserted  her  with  a  sense  of  duty  done,  and  passed 
the  remainder  of  the  banquet  in  exchanging  wireless  undertones 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  385 

with  his  other  neighbour.  It  was  wonderful  how  much  com- 
munication they  seemed  to  get  through,  considering  how  little 
noise  they  made.  It  seemed  to  be  done  with  eyebrows,  slight  facial 
adaptations,  new  ways  of  keeping  lips  closed,  but  rarely  completed 
speech. 

Challis  was  conscious  that  each  of  these  young  people  would  be 
the  other's  menu  for  the  rest  of  the  banquet,  so  he  surrendered 
himself  to  a  portentous  catechism  from  the  lady  with  the  eyeglass 
touching  his  habits. 

"Where  do  you  write,  Mr.  Challis?" 

"At  home — when  I'm  at  home.  Or  wherever  I  happen  to  be 
at  the  time."  When  he  had  said  this,  he  wondered  whether  he 
was  going  idiotic.  It  was  like  saying  a  mother  was  always  present 
at  the  birth  of  her  child. 

"  But  upstairs  or  down  ?  And  is  the  room  at  the  back  of  the 
house  ?  "  He  gave  close  particulars  of  all  the  rooms  at  the  Her- 
mitage. A  capital  way  of  making  conversation!  But  in  the  end 
it  ran  dry. 

"  I  like  writing  in  bed,"  said  he,  for  variety.  "  Rabelais  wrote 
in  bed."  He  wasn't  sure  of  this  at  all.  But  it  didn't  matter. 

"  Oh,  indeed ! "  said  the  lady.  She  was  an  Honourable  Miss 
Something,  and  not  nearly  dissolute  enough  to  know  anything 
about  authors  who  write  in  bed;  and,  besides,  she  had  her  doubts 
about  Rabelais.  She  changed  the  conversation  delicately.  Did 
Mr.  Challis  use  a  Fountain  Pen?  No,  he  didn't.  Because  he 
thought  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour  at  every  third  word,  and  that 
was  time  enough  for  an  active  person  under  fifty  to  dip  his  pen 
in  the  ink.  Pressmen  had  to  write  straight  on  without  stopping. 
The  lady  took  this  seriously,  and  said,  "  Dear  me ! " 

What  followed  was  very  like  the  sample.  Challis  could  make 
talk  and  think  of  something  else  quite  well.  So  he  thought  how 
different  his  right-hand  neighbour  was  from  Charlotte  Eldridge. 
And  that  set  him  a-thinking  again  about  his  wife.  But  there  were 
unnavigable  straits  in  that  sea.  His  thoughts  got  into  shoal- 
water,  and  his  neighbour  pursued  a  topic  unaccompanied  until 
she  found  she  had  left  him  behind.  Then  indignation  kindled, 
but  subject  to  good-breeding.  She  would  put  a  test  question, 
though,  to  see  how  much  attention  this  gentleman  had  been  pay- 
ing. 

"  How  many  words  are  there  in  a  book  ? "  The  question  came 
with  sudden  severity,  and  Challis  had  to  pull  himself  together  to 
reply. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  there's  not  always  exactly  the  same  num- 


386  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ber.  But  a  hundred  thousand,  more  or  less."  It  was  a  good  an- 
swer, and  embodied  a  feeling  current  in  the  book-trade.  And  the 
conversation,  thus  re-established,  developed  on  the  same  lines  until 
the  vanishing-point  of  the  army  of  womankind.  Challis  fancied 
he  saw  commiseration  on  Judith's  face  as  she  brought  up  the  rear. 
He  certainly  had  seldom  in  his  life  passed  a  duller  hour. 

He  knew  what  it  was  going  to  be  next.  Dreary  politics,  weari- 
some ethics,  maudlin  philosophy,  execrable — thrice  execrable! — 
Social  Problems  which  it  was  every  man's  duty  to  confront,  and 
every  other  man's  duty  to  hear  him  elucidate.  Yes! — there  was 
Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  at  it  already!  He  had  got  a  good  new  word 
to  talk  with — "noumenal" — and  was  brandishing  it  over  his 
hearers'  heads.  .  .  . 

Oh  dear! — metaphysics!  Not  even  free  treatment  of  what 
Challis's  mind  classed  as  Charlottology !  That  always  appealed 
to  our  common  something  or  other.  Now  what  he  could  catch 
at  first  hearing  seemed  bare,  cold,  cruel  Metaphysics.  Never  an 
indiscreet  lady  nor  an  unprincipled  gentleman,  nor  even  a  New 
Morality,  of  any  sort !  No  fun  at  all ! 

But  stop  a  bit!  Was  there  none?  Challis  listened,  and  per- 
ceived, before  coffee-time,  that  the  changed  guest  of  last  Septem- 
ber, who  had  become  a  Complete  Christian  Scientist,  had  denied 
the  existence  of  matter.  He  took  a  chair  nearer  to  the  discussion, 
not  to  seem  out  of  it,  and  so  attracted  to  himself  the  attention 
of  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes,  whose  lung-power  had  taken  possession  of 
the  rostrum. 

"I  appeal,"  said  that  gentleman,  "to  Mr.  Challis."  He  went 
on  with  a  testimonial  or  appreciation  beginning  with  "  than  whom 
I  will  venture  to  say,"  and  elucidating  Challis's  great  accomplish- 
ments and  intellectual  powers,  Challis  seized  the  opportunity  of  a 
coffee-deal  to  ask  what  he  was  being  appealed  to  about.  A  mixed 
response  informed  him  on  this  point.  A  definition  of  Matter  had 
been  called  for,  and  the  Confirmed  Christian  Scientist  had  de- 
murred to  giving  any  such  definition.  "  No  one,"  said  he,  "  can 
be  logically  called  on  to  define  a  thing  he  denies  the  existence  of. 
The  burden  of  definition  manifestly  lies  with  those  who  affirm 
it." 

"Personally,"  said  Challis,  "I  prefer — but  I  admit  it  may  be 
only  idiosyncrasy  on  my  part — to  know,  when  I  deny  the  existence 
of  anything,  what  the  thing  is  that  I  am  denying  the  existence  of. 
Perhaps  I  should  say,  rather,  what  it  would  be  if  it  existed.  If  I 
knew,  I  think  I  should  always  communicate  my  knowledge,  both 
from  civility  and  as  a  politic  act.  For  how  the  dickena  anyone 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  387 

else  would  know  what  I  was  denying  the  existence  of  if  I  didn't 
tell  him,  I'll  be  hanged  if  /  know !  " 

An  indignant  murmur  was  perceptible  round  the  table.  It 
gathered  force,  and  became  a  protest  against  this  treatment  of  the 
subject.  Everybody,  it  said,  knew  perfectly  well  what  matter 
was.  All  that  was  wanted  was  a  Definition  of  it. 

"  What  is  Matter  ?  "  said  Challis.  But  he  had  some  difficulty  in 
hearing  all  the  answers  to  this  question.  However,  he  caught  the 
following : 

"  Obviously,  there  is  no  such  distinct  thing  as  Matter.  What 
we  call  matter — stuff,  substance,  body,  or  what  not — is  really  only 
a  manifestation  of  energy." 

"  Obviously,  Matter  is  a  phenomenon." 

"  Obviously,  Matter  is  the  negation  of  mind." 

"  Obviously,  Matter  is  the  antithesis  of  spirit." 

"  Obviously,  Matter  is  the  reciprocal  interdependent  externali- 
zation  of  what  used  at  one  time  to  be  called  Forces,  but  which  are 
now  almost  universally  recognized  to  be  merely  modes  of  mo- 
tion." 

"  Something  you  can  prod."  This  last  piece  of  crudity  came 
from  the  young  man  Arthur,  and  attracted  no  attention. 

Now,  when  several  persons  shout  simultaneously  a  profound 
and  intuitive  judgment  apiece,  each  naturally  pauses  to  hear  what 
effect  his  own  has  had  upon  the  Universe.  An  opening  for  speech 
is  then  given  to  anyone  who  has  the  presence  of  mind  to  abstain 
from  wasting  time  over  the  detection  of  a  stray  meaning  anywhere. 
In  this  case,  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  saw  his  opportunity,  and  seized  it. 

"  Am  I  mistaken,"  said  he,  "  in  supposing  that  at  least  one  sug- 
gestion has  been  made  that  the  Universe,  as  at  present  formulated, 
has  but  two  constituents — namely,  the  subject  under  discussion, 
Matter,  on  the  one  hand ;  and  on  the  other  what  has  been  variously 
called  Mind  or  Spirit.  Shall  I  presume  too  far  on  the  attention 
the  Philosophical  Mind  is  prepared  to  vouchsafe  to  the  voice  of  a 
mere  sciolist  in  Metaphysical  profundity  if  I  indicate  the  ex- 
istence of  yet  a  third  constituent  of  what  has  been  not  inaptly 
called  the  Universal  Whole?  I  refer  to  what  I  may  term  the  Un- 
known." 

The  speaker  felt  that  this  was  so  admirably  expressed  that  he 
rashly  paused  to  lick  his  lips  over  it.  This  gave  Challis,  who  was 
in  a  malicious  or  impish  mood,  time  to  interject  a  remark.  Its 
effect  was  that,  for  the  purpose  of  discussing  the  Existence  of  Mat- 
ter, no  definition  of  it  would  be  of  any  use  to  us,  unless  we  pro- 
vided ourselves  also  with  an  accurate  definition  of  Existence. 


388  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Agreement  on  these  two  points  would  enable  us  to  approfondir  the 
question  of  the  entity  or  nonentity  of  the  appreciable  Universe. 

There  seemed  to  be  no  serious  difficulty,  unless  it  were  the  selec- 
tion of  the  required  definitions  from  an  embarras  de  richesses. 
Among  those  which  survived  the  tumult  of  many  confident  voices, 
Challis  distinguished  the  following: 

"  The  relation  a  thing  has  to  itself." 

"  The  condition  precedent  of  the  concept  *  nothing/  which  is  it- 
self a  fundamental  condition  of  thought." 

"  A  quality  thought  imputes  to  the  external  cause  of  every 
phenomenon." 

"  The  recognition  by  the  Ego  of  the  reality  of  its  environments." 

"  When  you've  nothing  particular  to  do."  This  one  was  Arthur, 
who,  however,  was  heard  a  moment  after  to  say,  "  All  right ;  I'll 
come !  "  in  response  to  a  summons,  and  thereafter  went,  carrying 
away  his  unfinished  cigar.  Challis  heard  his  voice  afar  very  soon, 
probably  in  the  garden  in  the  moonlight,  where  chits  and  counter- 
chits  were  in  council  on  the  lawn.  He  wanted  to  go  out  in  that 
garden  himself,  but — he  supposed — he  recognized  the  reality  of  his 
environments,  like  the  Ego,  and  felt  that  such  conduct  would  be 
rude.  Besides,  he  was  rather  amused,  too.  What  was  that  Mr. 
Brownrigg  was  saying? 

He  was  pointing  out,  of  course.  Nay,  more! — he  was  pointing 
out  that  Graubosch  had  already  pointed  out,  in  his  Appendix  B, 
that  we  had  no  direct  evidence  of  any  existence  whatever  inde- 
pendently of  a  percipient.  The  Confirmed  Christian  Scientist  ap- 
plauded this  audibly,  but  remarked  that  that  was  merely  Immanuel 
Kant,  after  all!  On  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Brownrigg  continued, 
we  have  not  a  particle  of  evidence  that  any  percipient  could  exist 
as  such,  independent  of  a  percipiendum.  We  could  not  collect  his 
evidence,  clearly,  without  exposing  ourselves  to  his  untried  observa- 
tion, and  thereby  upsetting  the  conditions  of  the  problem. 

The  Confirmed  Christian  Scientist's  face  fell,  and  he  asked 
dejectedly,  What  conclusion  did  Graubosch  draw?  Mr.  Brown- 
rigg replied  that  Graubosch  considered  the  problem  afforded  a  fine 
instance  of  Metaphysical  Equilibrium,  which  would  under  that 
name  continue  to  engage  the  attention  of  thinkers  long  after  the 
Insolubility  of  Problems  had  ceased  to  be  admitted  as  a  Scientific 
possibility.  The  final  solution  of  all  questions  could  not  be  re- 
garded with  complacency  by  a  thoughtful  world;  and  the  recog- 
nition of  Metaphysical  Equilibrium,  in  questions  which  the  Prim- 
itives of  Philosophy  had  condemned  as  unanswerable,  was  a  wel- 
come addition  to  the  resources  of  Modern  Thought,  for  which  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  389 

world  had  to  thank  its  originator  and  greatest  exponent,  Grau- 
bosch,  et  cetera. 

ChalliG  began  to  think  he  must  really  make  an  effort,  and  go. 
He  would  watch  for  an  opportunity.  It  came. 

The  advocates  of  the  Existence  of  Matter  were  disposed  to  make 
a  stand  in  favour  of  Human  Reason;  in  fact,  they  were  inclined 
to  claim  for  Man,  before  the  dawn  of  sight,  hearing,  or  feeling, 
the  position  of  a  Unit  charged  with  Syllogism,  ready  to  make 
short  work  of  any  Phenomenon  that  might  present  itself.  But, 
then,  how  about  anthropoid  apes?  Didn't  Sally  count  up  to  five? 
Well,  then — Reason  be  blowed !  Make  it  perception,  and  include 
all  forms  of  Life. 

This  brought  up  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  in  great  force.  We  were 
now  landed,  he  said,  in  a  crux  on  the  axis  of  which  this  most  in- 
teresting group  of  problems  might  be  said  to  rotate.  Let  the 
many-headed  activities  of  Ratiocinative  Speculation  agree  on  a 
Definition  of  Life,  and  he  would  venture  to  say  without  fear  of 
contradiction  that  a  keynote  would  have  been  struck  that  would 
resound  through  the  proper  quarters.  Challis  missed  their  de- 
scription, owing  to  Mr.  Brownrigg's  voice  intercepting  it 
resolutely. 

"  Surely,"  said  he,  "  we  need  go  no  further  than  the  one  sup- 
plied by  Herbert  Spencer."  Everyone  listened  with  roused  at- 
tention, and  Mr.  Brownrigg  continued.  "  You  will  all  recall  it  at 
once !  '  The  definite  combination  of  heterogeneous  changes,  both 
simultaneous  and  successive,  in  correspondence  with  external  co- 
existences and  sequences.'  It  is  among  the  few  decisions  of  mod- 
ern thought  which  Graubosch  has  been  able  to  accept  intact; 
and  the  translation  he  himself  made  of  it  into  German  surpasses, 
if  anything,  its  English  original  in  force  and  lucidity." 

Challis  thought  he  might  go.  No  need  to  stay  for  the  German 
translation.  On  the  way  from  the  entrance-hall  into  the  garden, 
he  nearly  collided  with  the  largest  possible  white  shirt-front  as- 
sociated with  the  smallest  possible  black  waistcoat.  The  owner, 
Arthur,  the  universal  cousin,  begged  his  pardon.  He  begged  it 
awfully,  it  seemed ;  but  why  ?  What  he  added,  before  going  away 
up  the  broad  staircase  four  steps  at  a  time,  was  enigmatical :  "  No 
gloves — only  I  can  lend  Jack  a  pair."  Challis  left  the  meaning  of 
this  in  a  state  of  Metaphysical  Equilibrium,  till  the  sound  of  music 
under  moonlit  cedars  on  the  lawn  explained  it.  A  chit-extem- 
porized dance  was  afoot  on  the  close-cropped  turf.  Challis  re- 
membered this  young  subaltern's  definition  of  Existence,  and  felt 
he  knew  what  sort  of  definition  of  Life  his  would  be. 


390  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

He  himself  would  not  mix  with  it,  under  the  cedars  there,  but 
would  finish  his  cigar  with  his  arms  crossed  on  this  ledge  of  clean 
stone  balustrade,  all  silvery  with  lichens  in  the  moonlight,  where 
he  would  see  and  not  be  seen.  Perhaps  he  would  remember  the 
name  of  the  little  creeping  flowers  that  last  September  were 
climbing  all  over  the  shrub  that  half  hid  him;  that  were  only 
pledges  as  yet,  but  that  he  knew  the  morning  sun  would  soon  make 
rubies  of.  Cockney  that  he  was,  he  had  had  to  ask  the  little  flower's 
name  of  Judith,  as  she  stood  on  that  gravel  path  below,  near  ten 
months  back.  What  a  short  time  it  seemed !  Petroleum  ? — No ! — 
Protaeolum,  was  it  ? — No ! — that  wasn't  it  exactly.  But  near 
enough!  .  .  . 

Footsteps  were  coming  along  the  pathway  now.  Was  it  hon- 
ourable to  overhear  what  those  two  girls  were  discussing  in  the 
moonlight?  Pooh! — stuff  and  nonsense!  These  chits — the  ideal 
What  could  those  children  have  to  say  that  they  could  mind  his 
hearing  ?  Besides,  they  would  never  know ;  and  he  could  cough  at 
a  moment's  notice. 

"  You  could  have  lawts  of  awfers,  if  you  liked,  Flawcey.  I 
know  a  girl  that's  had  eleven  awfers.  I've  had  three  awfers.  I 
suppose  now  it  is  Jack  I  shan't  have  any  maw  awfers."  The 
sweet  drawler,  who  is  of  course  the  speaker,  has  rather  a  rueful 
sound  over  this. 

"I  could  have  been  engaged  twice,"  says  the  other;  "only  one 
was  forty-five,  and  the  other  was  a  Hungarian." 

They  do  not  interest  the  drawler.  She  ripples  on  musically: 
u  Of  cawce,  I  shall  have  Cerberus,  because  he  belawngs  to  Jack. 
Oh,  he  is  a  dahling ! "  Then  the  two  go  out  of  hearing ;  but 
the  drawl  is  there,  in  the  distance  still.  Challis  notes  afar, 
under  the  cedar-trees,  how  Chinese  lanterns  are  coming  to  birth 
in  the  twilight.  There  will  only  be  real  darkness  quite  late 
to-night. 

Two  other  voices  are  audible  near  for  a  few  seconds,  with  a 
roused  interest  for  Challis,  whose  sense  of  eavesdropping  increases. 
Before  he  can  decide  on  stopping  his  ears,  he  has  heard  Sibyl  say: 
"  I  have  eased  my  conscience,  and  you  can't  blame  me,  whatever 
happens ! "  She  is  speaking  as  one  who  has  the  Universe  on  her 
shoulders.  Judith's  answer  is  lost,  rather  to  his  relief,  all  but  the 
timbre  of  its  resentment. 

Here  come  the  chits  back  I  They  don't  matter.  What's  the 
story  now  ? 

"  Oh,  it  was  hawrible !  If  only  it  had  been  an  awdinary  eye- 
glass, with  a  string !  " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  391 

"  But  then  it  would  have  had  to  be  fished  up,  you  know ! " 

"  Of  cawce  it  would.  I  didn't  think  of  that.  Perhaps  it's  just 
as  well  it  wawse  a  lens.  .  .  .  No,  it  was  quite  easy  how  it  hap- 
pened, if  you  think !  " 

"  But  whatever  did  you  do  ? " 

"  Of  course,  d'ya,  we  both  pretended  it  had  rolled  on  the  floor, 
and  kneeled  down  to  look  for  it.  But  we  both  knew  quite  well 
where  it  was,  and  I  could  feel  it  cold  all  down  my  back.  Oh,  it 
was  hawrible ! "  The  speaker  added  thoughtfully  after  a  pause : 
"  I  am  so  glad  it's  Jack  now,  and  not  Sholto.  He  did  look  such 
a  fool,  and  such  strong  cigars ! " 

Challis  was  able,  being  a  dramatist,  to  put  an  intelligible  con- 
struction on  this  little  dramatic  experience  of  the  young  lady  and 
her  previous  admirer.  We  need  not  probe  into  its  obscurity,  as 
its  only  interest  in  this  story  is  that  it  reminded  him  of  an  inci- 
dent of  his  own  bygone  youth — the  disappearance  of  a  pearl  from 
a  ring  of  his  first  wife's,  and  its  resurrection  from  the  inside  of 
his  own  stocking  after  setting  him  limping,  inexplicably,  all  the 
way  home  to  his  rooms  from  her  mother's  house.  Oh,  the  ridic- 
ulous trifles  of  life! — nothing  at  the  time,  but  all-powerful  for 
sadness  in  the  days  to  come. 

So  powerful,  in  this  case,  that  he  was  less  than  ever  ready  for 
the  sphere  of  pink  and  green  illumination  and  dance-music,  just 
becoming  self-assertive.  Of  course! — those  young  monkeys  were 
hanging  about  in  the  suburbs  merely  in  order  to  be  fetched.  They 
knew  their  value,  bless  you !  So  Challis  thought  to  himself  as  he 
lit  another  cigar,  sauntering  among  the  cut  yew-hedges  of  a  side- 
garden.  A  wing  of  the  house  was  between  him  and  the  dancers, 
and  their  sounds  were  dim.  But  from  a  back-window  of  the  room 
he  had  left  a  quarter  of  an  hour  since  still  came  such  noise  as  is 
inevitable  when  a  number  of  close  reasoners  with  strong  lungs 
go  seriously  to  work  on  the  Nature  of  Things,  and  point  out  each 
other's  fallacies.  "Word-changers  in  the  Temple  of  the  In- 
scrutable," thought  Challis  to  himself,  as  he  turned  to  seek  con- 
genial silence  farther  afield. 

He  would  find  it,  he  knew,  if  it  were  nowhere  else  in  the  world, 
in  the  sweet  little  rose-garden  called,  for  no  sane  reason,  "  Tophet." 

He  and  Judith  had  walked  there  more  than  once  on  his  previous 
visit,  and  he  had  surmised  that  its  most  inapt  name  might  be  con- 
nectable  with  the  now  common  word  toff,  meaning  a  person  of 
birth  and  position — a  descendant  of  ancestors.  Judith  had  asked 
why,  and  he  had  told  her  she  would  never  be  an  etymologist  at  that 
rate.  Bother  why! 


392  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

It  was  a  very  exclusive  little  garden  certainly — if  that  would 
make  a  reason — with  four  high  stone  walls  and  a  very  small  door 
with  a  very  large  key.  Perhaps  this  was  locked.  It  was  some- 
times. But  no  one  had  ever  confessed  to  having  locked  it.  And 
the  large  key  always  hung  on  a  hook  almost  in  the  lock's  pocket, 
so  to  speak.  A  very  old  gardener  had  told  Challis  it  was  done  on 
the  understanding  it  might  be  used.  "I  see,"  said  Challis. 
" '  Locke  on  the  Understanding.' "  And  the  old  gardener  had 
said  "  Ah !  "  with  perfect  unsuspicion. 

This  night  it  seemed  that  someone  had  taken  advantage  of  the 
understanding,  for  the  key  was  in  the  lock,  and  the  door  stood 
partly  open.  Someone  must  be  inside.  There  was  an  unaccount- 
able little  grating  in  the  door  one  could  look  through.  Challis  did 
so,  and  saw  who  it  was — the  woman  in  the  moonlight. 

It  was  strange  how  his  relations  with  this  woman  had  changed 
since  their  walk  by  the  river  two  days  since ;  when,  mind  you ! — not 
a  word  had  been  spoken  to  which  either  ascribed  a  meaning  that 
could  have  changed  them.  A  few  days  ago  theirs  was  a  normal 
friendship  enough,  bearing  in  mind  difference  of  age  and  social 
standards;  always  factors  in  human  problems  all  the  world  over, 
shut  our  eyes  to  them  as  we  may !  Now,  the  weft  of  his  conscious- 
ness at  least  was  hot  with  a  new  disturbing  tint.  Why,  in  Heav- 
en's name,  else,  need  his  first  instinct  be  to  turn  and  run  ?  And  all 
because,  forsooth,  he  had  come  on  Judith  Arkroyd  walking  in  a 
garden!  Surely  all  the  circumstances  were  vociferous  enough  of 
detachment  and  independence,  for  both,  to  make  a  start  and  a 
quickened  pulse  enormously  illogical.  Why  will  emotions  never 
be  logical? 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  he  did  all  but  turn  and  slip  quietly 
away.  He  accounted  to  the  upper  stratum  of  his  consciousness 
for  this  by  referring  it  to  a  strong  desire  to  be  alone  and  "  think 
over  things."  But  he  had  to  ignore  a  mind-flash  that  had  crossed 
its  lower  stratum — one  the  story  should  almost  apologize  for 
recording,  as  too  improbable — a  sudden  image  of  his  odious 
neighbour,  John  Eldridge;  which  he  knew,  without  hearing  any- 
thing, had  said :  "  You  can't  stand  that,  Master  Titus — never  do ! — 
never  do  at  all ! "  Again,  this  story  is  compelled  to  disclaim  all 
responsibility  for  Challis's  mental  oddities.  But  they  have  to  be 
recorded,  for  all  that. 

Perhaps  that  speech  of  Sibyl's,  in  the  garden  just  now,  had 
something  to  answer  for.  What  had  she  been  protesting  against? 
Not  the  stage;  that  was  all  over  and  done  with.  Challis  never 
detected  his  own  absurdity  in  jumping  to  the  conclusion  that  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  393 

protest  must  have  related  to  himself !     What  right  had  he  to  infer, 
from  a  tone  of  Judith's  voice,  that  she  spoke  about  him? 

He  did  not  run,  though  he  went  near  it.  Self -contempt  stepped 
in.  What  imbecile  cowardice!  What  a  miserable  fear  that  he 
would  lose  the  whip-hand  of  a  fool's  passion  he  was  not  even  pre- 
pared to  admit  the  existence  of!  He — Alfred  Challis — who  but 
half-an-hour  ago  had  been  moved  to  a  puny  heartache  over  that 
memory  of  the  pearl  and  its  wanderings  and  recovery!  And  then, 
to  stagger  in  a  fraction  of  time  all  sane  contemplation  of  past  and 
present,  came  the  clash  between  that  memory  and  his  moment  of 
shame,  a  short  while  since,  that  "  poor  Kate's "  place  in  his 
heart  had  so  soon  been  filled  by  poor  slow  Marianne.  His  wife 
now! — how  his  brain  reeled  to  think  of  it  all!  There  was  that 
home  of  his,  and  the  children,  and  Bob ;  the  thought  of  the  boy  as 
good  as  stung  him.  What  should  he — what  could  he — say  to  Bob 
hereafter,  if  .  .  .  ? 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

CONCERNING  A  ROSEBUD,  AND  MARIANNE'S  TORTOISESHELL  KNIFE. 
CHALLIS'S  PRESENCE  OF  MIND.  THE  FOOL  ON  FIRE.  DEFINITION 
WANTED  OF  DEFINITION.  CHALLIS'S  SUDDEN  CALL  BACK  TO  TOWN. 
HOW  SIBYL  HAD  SEEN  IT  ALL 

THERE  was  a  little  fountain  in  the  middle  of  the  little  garden, 
with  a  little  amorino  from  the  court  of  the  Signoria  at  Florence 
to  attend  to  the  squirting.  The  moon  was  comparing  the  light 
she  could  make  on  its  shower  of  drops  with  sparkles  from  the 
lady's  dress  who  stood  beside  it.  It  was  in  no  hurry  to  decide — 
might  perhaps  ask  a  tiny  cloud,  that  was  coming,  to  help.  Once 
inside  the  garden  Challis  was  committed  to  approaching  its  centre. 
There  was — remember! — no  official  recognition  of  any  change  in 
the  position  of  the  two  since  Trout  Bend. 

"  I  came  here  to  be  alone,  but  you  may  come."  Judith's  words 
might  well  have  made  matters  worse.  But  her  tranquil,  uncon- 
cerned, almost  insolent  beauty  in  the  moonlight  was  fraught  with 
a  sense  of  self-command  that  more  than  counterbalanced  them.  It 
gave  her  hearer  a  sort  of  range  feeling — determined  his  position — 
put  him  on  his  good  behaviour.  He  could  trust  to  her  control  of 
their  interview,  but  all  the  same  a  little  resented  feeling  so  much 
like  a  child  in  her  hands. 

"  I  came  here  to  be  alone,  too,"  said  he. 

"Perhaps  I  ought  to  go?"  Manifestly  not  spoken  seriously, 
but  not  jestingly  enough  to  set  badinage  afoot.  She  did  not  wait 
for  his  answer,  but  went  on,  "  Perhaps  we  both  ought,  for  that 
matter.  Did  you  find  the  politics  bored  you?  .  .  .  oh! — meta- 
physics, was  it  ?  7  came  here  because  I  found  my  little  sister  un- 
endurable." 

Challis  thrust  what  he  had  overheard,  when  eavesdropping,  into 
the  background  of  his  mind:  "About  the  stage,  I  suppose?  Why 
do  you  not  tell  her — set  her  mind  at  ease  ? "  But  he  knew  Sibyl 
knew  already,  and  this  was  only  to  help  him  to  keep  his  fore- 
ground clear. 

Judith  appeared  to  select  her  answer  at  leisure,  from  among 
reserves.  "  Sibyl  knows,"  she  said.  "  The  indictment  related  to 
something  else  this  time."  Then,  as  though  she  were  weighing  a 

394 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  395 

possibility:  "No — I  suppose  I  could  hardly  tell  you  about  that. 
One  is  too  artificial.  We  should  be  much  nicer  if  we  were  small 
children.  Never  mind !  Some  day,  perhaps !  " 

Challis  decided  on  saying,  with  a  laugh,  "  I  suppose  I  mustn't 
be  inquisitive  and  ask  questions,"  as  the  best  way  of  suggesting 
that  his  own  guesses,  if  any,  were  trivial  and  impersonal.  She 
ended  a  silence  in  which  he  fancied  the  subject  was  to  be  forgot- 
ten by  saying :  "  I  should  tell  you  nothing,  whatever  you  asked. 
Besides,  you  have  never  had  a  little  sister,  and  would  not  under- 
stand. Family  relations  are  mysteries." 

"  No,  I  have  never  had  a  little  sister."  And  then  Challis  felt 
like  a  liar,  and  heart-sick  as  he  thought  of  the  thoroughness  with 
which  he  had  accepted  Kate's  "  little  sister  "  as  his  own.  What  a 
compensation  he  had  thought  her  for  a  mother-in-law  his  most 
gruesome  anticipations  had  not  bargained  for!  When  did  the 
change  come  about? — when? — when?  Why  need  the  memory  of 
it  all  come  on  him  now,  of  all  times?  But  Judith  stopped  his 
retrospect  short  with :  "  Get  me  that  rose-bud,  if  you  have  a  knife. 
Don't  scratch  yourself  on  my  account."  For  Challis  to  reply: 
"  What  care  I  how  much  I  scratch  myself,  if  it  is  on  your  ac- 
count ? "  would  have  savoured  of  Chitland,  musically  audible  afar. 
Challis  left  it  unsaid. 

The  rose-bud  was  soon  got  with  the  aid  of  a  little  tortoiseshell 
knife  that  was  really  Marianne's.  There  was  another  twinge  in 
ambush  for  her  husband  over  that,  and  a  sharp  cross-fire  between 
it  and  the  soul-brush,  that  was  being  kept  at  work  all  this  while — 
unconsciously,  one  hopes;  but  this  story  knows  exactly  what 
Charlotte  Eldridge  would  have  thought  and  said.  And  she  might 
have  been  right,  for  it  makes  little  pretence  of  being  able  to  see 
behind  the  veil  this  Judith's  beauty  hides  her  inner  soul  with,  nor 
to  read  her  heart.  All  it,  the  story,  has  known  of  her  so  far  has 
been  that  beauty  and  her  love  of  power.  A  perilous  quality,  that! 

All  it  can  say  now  is  that  if  this  woman  knows,  as  she  bends, 
careless  how  close,  to  take  the  flower  from  the  hand  that  gathered 
it;  as  she  flashes  the  diamonds  on  her  white  fingers  quite  need- 
lessly near  his  lips — if  she  has  any  insight,  as  she  does  this,  into 
the  way  she  is  playing  with  a  human  soul,  then  is  she  a  thoroughly 
bad  woman.  And  to  our  thinking  all  the  worse  if  she  knows,  or 
believes,  her  reputation  is  safe  in  her  own  keeping.  For  then  what 
is  she,  at  best,  but  a  keen  sportswoman  wicked  enough  to  poach 
on  her  fellow-woman's  preserves,  destroying  the  peace  of  a  home 
merely  to  show  what  a  crack  shot  she  is.  We  must  confess  to  a 
preference  for  the  standard  forms  of  honourable,  straightforward 


396  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lawlessness.  But  perhaps  these  reflections  are  doing  injustice  to 
Judith.  She  may  be  capable  of  good,  honest,  downright  wicked- 
ness. Remember  that  she  is  comparatively  young  and  inexperi- 
enced. 

One  should  surely  beware,  too,  of  doing  injustice  to  beautiful 
women — ascribing  to  them  motives  of  overt  fascination,  to  en- 
tangle man,  in  every  simple  action  a  discreet  dowdy  might  practise 
unnoticed  and  unblamed.  Make  an  image  of  such  a  one  in  your 
mind — make  it  ropy,  bony,  obliging,  with  unwarrantable  knuckles 
— let  it  place  a  flower  in  its  bosom,  if  any;  and  then  say  whether 
Charlotte  Eldridge's  keenest  analysis  could  detect  in  its  action  the 
smallest  element  she  could  pounce  on  as  seductive;  the  slightest 
appearance  of  a  hook  baited  to  captivate  her  John,  or  anybody 
else's  ?  No,  no ! — let  us  be  charitable,  and  suppose,  for  the  present, 
at  any  rate,  that  Judith  was  unconscious  in  this  flower  incident 
of  every  trace  of  guile — merely  wanted  the  flower,  in  fact,  and 
asked  Challis  to  get  it,  rather  than  risk  her  "  Princess  "  skirts  in 
the  thorns  which  would  have  made  shoddy  of  them  in  no  time. 

There  are  those,  we  believe,  who  hold  that  all  the  fascination  of 
woman  is  due  to  adjuncts;  that  the  thrill  of  enchantment  that 
"  goes  with "  adroit  coiffures  and  well-cut  skirts — especially  the 
latter — would  not  survive  seeing  their  owner,  or  kernel,  run  across 
a  ploughed  field  in  skin-tights — for  we  assume  that  the  Lord  Cham- 
berlain would  allow  no  more  crucial  experiment.  It  may  be  they 
are  right.  High  Art  teaches  us  the  truth  of  the  converse  proposi- 
tion. For  that  draggled-tailed,  ill-hooked,  ill-eyed,  ill-buttoned 
thing  with  a  bad  cold  and  a  shock  of  tow  on  its  head,  that  is 
emerging  from  a  damp  omnibus  to  the  relief  of  its  next-door  neigh- 
bour, is  going,  please — when  it  has  got  rid  of  some  raiment  which 
would  certainly  go  to  the  wash  with  advantage — is  going  to  sit  for 
Aphrodite,  of  all  persons  in  the  world;  for  that  very  goddess  and 
no  other ! — for  her  the  light  of  whose  eyelids  and  hair  in  the  utter- 
most ends  of  the  sea  none  shall  declare  or  discern.  .  .  . 

There! — it's  no  use  talking  about  it,  and  stopping  the  story. 
Besides,  Miss  Arkroyd  "  had  on  "  her  "  Princess  "  dress  aforesaid, 
a  strange  witchery  of  infinitely  flexible  woven  texture,  snake- 
scaled  and  gem-fraught  without  loss  of  a  fold,  rustling  and  glitter- 
ing till  none  could  say  which  was  rustle  and  which  was  glitter. 
And  it  all  seemed  a  running  comment  on  its  owner — its  pith  and 
marrow,  as  it  were ! — a  mysterious  outward  record  of  her  inner  self. 
Where  is  the  gain  of  trying  to  guess  how  much  was  shell  and  how 
much  was  self?  Enough  that  few  women  would  have  looked  as 
lovely  as  she  did,  then  and  there. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  397 

For  all  this  speculation — let  the  story  confess  it — is  due  simply 
to  the  excessive  beauty  the  moonbeams  made  the  most  of,  as  its 
owner's  eye  dropped  on  the  flower  her  fingers  were  adjusting,  to 
make  sure  it  was  exactly  in  the  right  place,  and  to  engineer  stray 
thorn-points  that  else  might  scratch.  As  for  what  is  really  pass- 
ing in  her  heart,  the  story  washes  its  hands  of  it. 

"  Marianne  refuses  again,  of  course,"  said  she,  when  the  rose 
was  happily  settled — or  sadly,  as  it  must  have  felt  the  parting  from 
its  stem. 

"  Again,  of  course !  "  said  he.     "  But  .    .    . ! " 

"  But  how  did  I  know,  you  mean  ?  Why,  you  would  have  told 
me  at  once  if  she  had  been  coming." 

"  Not  necessarily.  I  might  have  hoped  for  a  second  letter,  to 
say  she  had  changed  her  mind.  It  is  no  pleasure  to  me  that  she 
refuses." 

"  It  might  be  to  some  husbands.  But  you  are  an  affectionate 
husband.  Do  tell  me  something." 

"  Anything !  "  His  emphasis  on  this  was  a  satisfaction  to  him. 
It  was  like  a  very  small  instalment  of  what  he  had  no  right  to  say, 
or  even  to  think ;  but,  uttered  in  an  ambush  of  possible  other  mean- 
ings, it  franked  the  speaker  of  any  particular  one  among  them. 

"  If  I  were  to  ask  to  see  her  letter,  should  you  be  offended  ? " 

He  knew  he  could  not  answer,  "  Nothing  you  do  can  possibly 
give  me  offence,"  in  the  tone  of  empty  compliment  that  would  have 
made  it  safe.  He  gave  up  the  idea,  and  said,  with  reality  in  his 
voice :  "  I  should  not  show  it  to  you." 

"  I  like  you  when  you  speak  like  that,"  said  Judith. 

He  felt  a  little  apologetic.  "  After  all,"  he  said,  "  it's  only  tit- 
for-tat.  You  wouldn't  tell  me  what  Sibyl  said." 

"/  am  not  offended,"  said  Judith.  A  certain  sense  of  rich 
amusement  in  her  voice  made  these  words  read :  "  I  take  no  offence 
at  your  male  caprices.  I  know  your  ways.  You  are  forgiven." 
But  aloud  her  speech  was,  with  a  concession  to  seriousness :  "  I 
cannot  well  repeat  what  Sibyl  said.  But  do  not  think  of  showing 
me  Marianne's  letter  if  you  wish  not  to  do  so.  It  is  not  idle  curi- 
osity that  made  me  ask  to  see  it.  I  had  a  motive — perhaps  not  a 
wise  one — but  I  think  ..." 

"What?" 

"  I  think  you  would  forgive  it."  The  suggestion  certainly  was 
that  the  speaker  would  see  some  way  of  influencing  Marianne — 
making  her  drop  her  absurd  obstinacy.  No  other  motive  was  pos- 
sible, thought  Challis. 

After  all,  what  was  there  in  the  text  of  the  letter  that  it  would 


398  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

be  a  hanging  matter  for  Judith  to  read?  She,  from  her  higher 
standpoint — for  Challis  believed  in  her,  you  see? — could  forgive, 
overlook,  understand  a  scrap  or  two  of  rudeness,  a  misspelt  word 
or  so.  Why  should  he  not  show  the  letter,  and  have  done  with  it? 

"  It  is  in  your  pocket,  you  know ! "  Judith  was  certainly  clair- 
voyante,  and  Challis  said  so.  "  Clairvoyante  enough  to  see  you 
put  it  in  your  pocket  as  you  came  into  the  drawing-room ! "  said 
she,  laughing. 

Why  this  context  of  circumstances  should  make  Challis  plead 
illegibility  by  moonlight  as  a  reason  for  not  producing  the  letter 
he  could  not  have  said  for  the  life  of  him.  It  was  a  weak  plea; 
because,  when  Judith  "pointed  out"  that  so  inveterate  a  smoker 
probably  had  wax  vestas  in  his  pocket,  it  seemed  to  leave  him  no 
line  of  defence  to  fall  back  upon.  He  produced  the  letter,  and  to 
our  thinking  was  guilty  of  a  breach  of  faith  to  Marianne  in  allow- 
ing Judith  to  take  it  from  him.  At  least,  he  should  only  have 
read  to  her  what  related  to  the  invitation. 

The  first  wax  vesta  blew  out,  and  the  second.  "  Hold  it  inside 
this,"  said  Judith,  making  a  shelter  for  the  third  with  a  gauzy 
thing  of  Japanese  origin  she  really  had  no  need  for,  the  night 
was  so  warm.  "  You  must  hold  it  steadier  than  that,"  she  added. 
"If  this  caught,  it  would  blaze  up."  She  was  holding  the  open 
letter  herself,  with  perfect  steadiness. 

"  This  is  the  last  vesta,"  said  Challis.  "  So  you  must  read 
quick.  Look  sharp !  "  It  was  the  fifth  match,  and  the  flame  was 
nearing  his  fingers. 

"  Half-a-second  more ! "  said  Judith.  She  had  turned  the  let- 
ter over.  There  was  writing  on  the  back  that  Challis  had  missed. 
He  tried  to  read  it  now,  over  the  shoulder  that  was  so  white  in 
the  moonlight,  and  failed.  For  the  flame  touched  his  fingers,  and 
burned  him. 

Man  is  absolutely  powerless  against  the  sudden  touch  of  fire. 
Remember  Uncle  Bob  and  the  knife!  Challis  had  to  leave  go, 
nolens  volens.  The  burning  remnant  of  the  wax  fell  on  the  gauzy 
scarf,  which  caught  instantly.  The  moment  was  critical.  But 
Challis  showed  a  presence  of  mind  beyond  what  one  is  apt  to  credit 
neurotic  literary  men  with — mere  mattoids,  after  all!  Instead  of 
trying  to  beat  the  flame  out,  or  waiting  to  get  his  coat  off  to 
smother  it,  he  tore  the  scarf  sharply  away  from  its  wearer,  who, 
happily,  had  the  nerve  to  release  a  safety-pin  in  time  to  get  it 
clear. 

"  Are  you  burned  ? "  His  voice  seemed  out  of  keeping  with  the 
resolution  of  his  action. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  399 

"  Very  little,  if  at  all.  Just  a  touch,  on  this  shoulder.  Nothing 
really — but  I  am  afraid  your  hands  ..." 

"Oh  no!— they're  all  right.  Stop  a  bit!— what's  that?"  It 
was  Marianne's  letter,  half-burned,  and  still  burning.  The  un- 
extinguished  scarf  it  had  fallen  to  the  ground  with  had  got 
through  its  combustion  briskly.  Challis  was  only  just  in  time  to 
save  half  the  letter ;  and  it  was  not  the  half  he  wanted. 

"  I  dare  say  it  doesn't  matter,"  said  he  to  Judith ;  "  but  there 
was  something  I  hadn't  read  on  the  back.  What  you  were  reading 
when  the  match  gave  out." 

"Yes — I  think  there  was.  A  postscript.  I  didn't  make  it  out. 
Shall  we  go  in,  or  over  on  the  lawn,  where  they  are  dancing  ? " 
She  added  a  moment  later :  "  I  don't  know  why  I  am  taking  it  for 
granted  that  you  don't  dance." 

"I  certainly  don't;  nowadays,  at  least.  But  you  do,  of  course. 
The  lawn  by  all  means !  "  They  passed  through  the  little  porticino, 
and  complied  with  the  understanding  it  had  entered  into.  As 
Challis  was  turning  the  key,  he  paused  an  instant  to  look  round 
at  Judith  and  say:  "Are  you  sure  you  can't  remember  anything 
of  what  was  written  on  the  back  of  the  letter  ? "  And  she  replied 
without  hesitation:  "Not  a  word.  I  had  no  time."  Then  he 
said :  "  I  wish  you  could  remember  only  just  one  word  or  two,  to 
show  what  it  was  about."  She  answered:  "But  I  can't.  I  am 
sorry.  We  must  hope  it  was  of  no  importance." 

They  walked  side  by  side,  without  speaking,  to  the  end  of  the 
last  yew-hedged  terrace,  just  on  the  open  garden.  Then,  inex- 
plicably, they  turned  and  went  back  along  the  path.  When  they  ar- 
rived again  at  the  little  gate  in  the  wall,  Challis  suddenly  faced  his 
companion.  He  looked  white  and  almost  handsome  in  the  moon- 
light— or  so  she  may  have  thought,  easily  enough — for  his  eyes  had 
a  large,  frightened  look,  that  became  them  and  the  thoughtful 
thinness  of  their  bone-marked  setting.  He  spoke  quite  suddenly, 
keeping  his  voice  under,  with  quick  speech  that  showed  its  tension. 

"  Judith — Judith  Arkroyd !  It  is  no  use.  I  can  bear  it  no 
longer.  I  must  leave  you.  It  would  have  been  well  for  me  if  I 
had  done  so  earlier.  It  would  have  been  best  for  me  if  I  had 
never  seen  you."  He  turned  from  her,  almost  as  though  he  shrank 
from  the  sight  of  her,  and  leaned  against  the  grey  stone  angle  of 
the  little  doorway,  his  face  hidden  in  his  arms.  Had  the  woman 
who  watched  him — shame  if  it  were  so ! — a  feeling  akin  to  triumph, 
as  she  saw  how  his  visible  hand  caught  and  clenched  and  trembled 
in  the  moonlight  ?  It  may  have  been  so.  The  story  has  no  plum- 
met to  take  soundings  of  her  heart. 


400  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Her  mere  words  may  have  meant  fear  lest  she  had  overplayed 
her  part — no  more !  "  Oh,  Scroop,  you  cannot  blame  me."  But 
the  way  she  too  leaned,  as  for  support  in  dizziness,  on  the  edge  of 
a  great  Italian  garden-pot,  raised  on  a  pedestal  at  the  path-corner, 
and  pressed  her  hand  to  her  side  as  though  her  breath  might  catch 
the  less  for  it — these  things  seemed  to  belong  to  more  than  the 
alarm  of  a  sudden  start. 

He  turned,  with  some  recovery  of  self-possession,  as  one  who 
shakes  free  of  any  unmanliness.  "  Blame  you,  Judith !  "  he  cried, 
calling  her  freely  by  her  name — a  thing  he  had  never  yet  done. 
"  Not  I,  God  knows !  I  am  all  self -indictment,  if  ever  man  was. 
And  this,  look  you,  is  my  offence:  that  I,  knowing  myself  as  I  am, 
knowing  what  I  owe  to  my  wife,  to  my  children — they  are  dear  to 
me  still,  I  tell  you,  believe  it  who  may! — that  I  have  allowed  the 
image  and  presence  of  you,  Judith  Arkroyd,  to  take  such  pos- 
session of  me,  my  mind,  my  whole  soul,  that  you  are  never  ab- 
sent from  me.  And  the  bondage  that  is  on  me  is  one  I  cannot 
see  the  end  of.  All  I  know  is  that  I  am  powerless  against  it.  It 
may  be — it  may  be — that  the  memory  of  you  will  die  out  and  leave 
me — that  when  I  see  you  no  longer,  your  voice  and  your  beauty 
will  become  things  of  the  past,  and  be  forgotten.  When  we  have 
parted,  as  we  must,  Heaven  grant  me  this  oblivion !  But  I  cannot 
conceive  it  now." 

He  paused,  and  as  he  wiped  the  drops  from  his  brow,  seemed 
to  hark  back  a  little  to  his  daily  self,  saying  in  a  quick  under- 
tone :  "It  is  a  good  world  to  forget  in.  Precedents  are  in  favour 
of  it.  There  is  that  to  be  said." 

The  little  change  in  his  manner  made  her  find  her  voice.  "  Yes !  " 
she  said.  "  I  see  how  it  is.  You  must  go.  I  shall  always  grieve 
that  I  could  not  keep  your  friendship  .  .  .  yes — you  see  my 
meaning?  I  have  valued  it.  But  this  kind  of  thing  is  the  mis- 
fortune of  some  women.  It  is  a  bitter  thing — we  must  part  in  a 
few  hours,  so  I  may  speak  plainly — a  bitter  thing  to  be  forced  to 
lose  a  friend  one  loves  as  a  friend,  merely  because  one  chances  to 
be  a  woman." 

If  only  this  interview  might  have  ended  here!  If  only  Mr. 
Ramsey  Tomes  and  Mr.  Brownrigg  could  have  come  on  the  scene 
now,  instead  of  five  minutes  later!  But  there  never  was  good 
came  of  last  words,  from  the  world's  beginning. 

The  unhappy,  storm-tossed  man  and  his  tormentor — for  that 
was  what  Judith  was,  meaningly  or  without  intent — turned  to  go 
back  towards  the  noisy  world.  Half-way,  as  though  she  would  use 
the  silence  and  darkness  of  the  alley  they  were  passing  through  for 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  401 

the  freedom  of  speech  such  surroundings  give,  Judith  spoke  again. 
If  Charlotte  Eldridge  had  been  there,  her  interpretation  of  Judith 
certainly  would  have  been :  "  She  doesn't  mean  to  let  him  go — not 
she !  "  Would  it  have  been  a  fair  one  ? 

Possibly.  But  all  Judith  said  was :  "  I  am  afraid  I  am  a  woman 
without  a  heart." 

Challis  said  interrogatively:  "Because  .    .    .?"  and  waited. 

"  Because  I  find  myself  only  thinking  of  what  /  shall  lose  when 
you  go.  If  I  were  good,  Scroop  " — a  slight  sneer  here — "  I  should 
have  a  little  thought  for  you.  I  suppose  I'm  bad.  Very  well !  " 

"  I  am  taking  no  credit  to  myself  for  any  sort  of  altruism  in  my 
— my  feelings  towards  yourself."  Challis  shied  off  from  the  use 
of  the  word  "  love " ;  but  whether  because  it  would  have  rung 
presumptuously  without  the  sanction  of  its  object,  or  because  of 
the  bald  rapidity  of  its  use  on  the  stage,  where  Time  is  of  the 
essence  of  the  contract,  he  might  have  found  it  hard  to  say. 

"I  should  not  thank  you  for  it.  Nor  any  woman.  But  many 
a  woman  who  injures  a  friend  unawares — being  unselfish  and 
pious  and  so  on — would  gladly  ..."  She  hesitated. 

"  Put  a  salve  to  the  wound  ?  " 

"Well — yes — that  sort  of  thing!  But  I  am  afraid  I  am  rather 
brutal  about  it.  Can  you  not,  after  all,  forget  this  foolish  in- 
fatuation for  my  sake?  Co'nsider  the  wild  words  you  spoke  just 
now  unsaid,  and  give  me  back  my  friend.  Come,  Scroop !  "  Her 
beautiful  eyes  were  surely  full  of  honest  appeal — no  arriere  pensee 
Mrs.  Eldridge  would  have  damned  her  for — as  she  went  frankly 
close  to  him  and  laid  her  hand  on  his. 

He  shrank  from  her — absolutely  shrank! — and  gasped  as  though 
her  touch  took  his  breath  away.  He  found  no  words,  and  she  had 
not  finished. 

"  Think — oh,  think ! — what  rights  could  I  ever  have  in  you  ? 
Think  of  your  wife.  ..." 

"  I  do  think  of  her — oh,  I  do  think !     But  it  makes  me  mad." 

"  Go  back  to  her  and  forget  me  then,  if  it  must  be  so.  Re- 
member this,  Scroop — that  the  bond  that  holds  you  to  her  is  thrice 
as  strong  as  it  would  be  if  .  .  ." 

"If  what?" 

"Well! — I  must  say  it.    If  it  were  a  legal  one.  ..." 

"  How  do  you  mean  ? " 

"  I  mean  you  are  not  married  to  her — there !  " 

"  Oh,  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  rubbish  ? " 

"Yes."  And  then  Challis  thought  to  himself,  through  the  fog 
of  all  his  soul-torture  and  perplexity,  "How  comes  she  to  be  so 


402  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ready  to  go  home  to  the  mark?  We  have  never  talked  beyond  the 
bare  fact  that  Marianne  and  Kate  were  sisters."  But  he  let  the 
thought  go  by,  to  make  way  for  another  of  greater  weight  with 
him. 

"  You  never  can  mean,"  he  cried — "  you — you — you  never  can 

mean  that  / "  She  interrupted  him  with  the  self-command 

that  seemed  to  belong  to  her — to  grow  upon  her,  if  anything — and 
completed  his  speech  for  him :  "  That  you  would  take  advantage 
of  a  legal  shuffle  to  evade  a  promise  given  in  honour?  Of  course, 
I  mean  the  exact  reverse.  I  mean  that  you,  of  all  men,  would 
hold  yourself  three  times  bound  to  an  illegal  contract." 

"  All  men  would,  worth  the  name  of  men.  Debts  Law  disallows 
are  debts  of  honour.  But  all  that  is  nothing.  I  love  my  wife.  I 
tell  you  I  love  my  wife;  I  will  not  have  it  otherwise."  His  voice 
was  almost  angry,  as  against  some  counter-speech.  But  he  dropped 
it  in  a  kind  of  exhaustion,  with  a  subdued  half -moan.  "  What 
have  I  to  do,"  said  he  wearily,  "  with  all  these  wretched  nostrums 
of  legislation  and  religion,  that  would  dictate  the  terms  of  Love? 
Mine  have  come  to  me,  and  my  soul  is  wrenched  asunder.  Surely 
the  penalty  is  enough  to  make  beadledom  superfluous.  No  man 
who  knows  what  Love  means  will  ever  love  two  women.  .  .  . 
There — that's  enough !  "  He  stopped  abruptly,  as  cutting  some- 
thing needless  short.  She  spoke: 

"  It  comes  to  good-bye,  then  ? " 

"Yes— unless  ..." 

"Unless  what?" 

"You  will  say  I  am  strange." 

"  You  are.     But  you  cannot  change  yourself.     Speak  plainly !  " 

"Listen,  Judith!  If  you  can  look  me  in  the  face  and  say  you 
have  no  love  for  me — you  know  the  sense  I  use  the  word  in  as  well 
as  I — then  I  will  pack  away  a  sorrow  in  my  heart  till  it  dies;  and 
the  time  will  come  when  you  shall  say :  '  That  man  is  my  good 
friend,  but  he  declared  a  fool's  passion  to  me  once,  for  all  that, 
and  now  he  seems  to  have  forgotten  it.*  It  shall  be  so.  But, 
better  still,  and  easier  for  me,  if  you  could  say  with  truth  that  there 
was  some  other  man  elsewhere  whose  hand  in  yours  would  be 
more  welcome  than  mine;  whose  voice,  whose  look,  whose  lips 
would  be  a  dearer  memory.  If  you  could  tell  me  this,  the  fool's 
passion  would  at  least  be  all  the  shorter  lived."  He  stopped  as 
they  reached  the  end  of  the  sheltered  path,  and  looked  her  full  in 
the  face.  He  had  stopped,  as  it  were,  on  a  keynote  of  self-ridicule 
— the  habit  was  inveterate — and  he  was  one  of  those  men  who  are 
at  their  best  when  individuality  comes  out  strongest. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  403 

She  had  never  looked  so  beautiful  in  his  eyes  as  when  she  stood 
there,  silent  in  the  moonlight,  weighing  to  all  appearance  the  an- 
swer she  should  make.  Perhaps  she  knew  how  beautiful — who  can 
say?  She  remained  motionless  through  a  long  pause — through 
the  whole  of  a  nightingale's  song  in  the  thicket  hard  by.  Then  her 
bosom  heaved — a  long  breath — and  then,  with  a  sort  of  movement 
of  surrender  of  her  hands — how  the  diamonds  flashed! — she  said, 
"  I  cannot,"  and  then  again,  "  No — I  cannot."  Then,  in  a  more 
measured  and  controlled  voice :  "  This  means  that  we  must  part — 
now !  I  shall  not  see  you  to-morrow." 

"  Strangers  and  foes  do  sunder  and  not  kiss,"  said  Helena  to 
Bertram.  But  how  about  those  who  are  neither  foes  nor  strangers, 
yet  must  be  more  than  friends,  and  dare  not  be  lovers?  An 
interview  of  this  sort  had  best  not  end  in  an  embrace,  if  two 
victims  of  infatuation  are  to  be  saved  from  themselves.  Let  the 
description  remain  for  Judith  as  well  as  Challis.  But  she  had 
the  self-command  to  check  his  impulse,  throwing  out  her 
jewelled  hands  against  it,  and  crying — not  loudly,  but  beneath  her 
breath :  "  No — no — no !  Remember  what  we  are — what  we  must 
be.  For  Heaven's  sake,  no  madness ! "  And  then,  as  he  let 
fall  his  hands  and  their  intention,  but  with  all  his  hunger  on 
him,  and  the  foreknowledge  of  sleepless  hours  to  come,  she 
turned  towards  the  voices  that  were  approaching  them  from  the 
house. 

"  I  cannot  recall " — it  was  Mr.  Tomes  who  couldn't — "  any  occa- 
sion on  which  a  discussion  of  so  abstruse,  and  I  may  say  elusive, 
a  topic  has  been  conducted  with  more  philosophical  insight,  and  a 
stronger  sense  of  what  I  need  not  scruple  to  term  the  argumenta- 
tive meum  and  tuum.  Neither  am  I  prepared  to  admit  what  pos- 
sibly inexperience  in  debate  may  be  eager  to  affirm,  that  the  ratio- 
cinative  perspicuity  of  a  post-prandial  collective  intelligence  has 
been  fruitless  in  result,  I  may  point  with  satisfaction  to  at  least 
two  conclusions — the  impossibility  of  drawing  safe  inferences  in 
discussions  where  the  same  word  is  used  in  several  different 
senses,  and  the  uselessness  of  the  attempt  to  define  the  meaning 
of  words  until  we  are  agreed  upon  the  nature,  and,  I  may  add,  the 
legitimate  limits,  of  Definition."  Mr.  Tomes  paused.  He  was  a 
little  disconcerted  at  the  discovery  that  he  was  being  intelligible 
by  accident,  and  also  he  had  caught  sight  of  Challis  and  Miss  Ark- 
royd.  His  abrupt  full-stop  as  he  met  them  was  unwelcome  to  this 
former,  who  would  have  had  the  orator  continue,  to  hide  his  own 
perturbation.  But  it  did  not  matter,  for  Judith  was  more  than 
equal  to  the  occasion. 


404  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  I  have  narrowly  escaped  being  burned  alive,  Mr.  Tomes.  Mr. 
Challis  set  fire  to  me  lighting  his  cigar.  However,  he  put  me 
out."  Nothing  could  exceed  her  easy  grace  and  perfect  self- 
possession. 

Very  fortunately  Mr.  Wraxall,  the  Universal  Insurer,  was  one 
of  Mr.  Tomes's  companions.  The  opportunity  was  a  splendid  one, 
and  he  seized  upon  it.  Challis  got  away  in  a  most  dastardly 
manner,  leaving  Judith  exposed  to  risks  and  averages  and  premi- 
ums beyond  the  wildest  dreams  of  Negotiation  run  mad.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Mr.  Wraxall  must  have  been  welcome  enough. 
When  life  jars,  let  others  do  the  volubility,  and  spare  us ! 

The  dispersal  of  guests  and  the  family  at  the  foot  of  the  great 
staircase  was  to-night  more  tumultuous  than  usual.  Not  only  was 
the  house-party  at  its  maximum — its  noisy  maximum! — but  many 
outsiders  from  the  neighbourhood  were  among  the  dancers.  Challis 
noticed,  though  whether  as  cause  or  consequence  he  never  inquired, 
four  more  young  soldiers,  who,  he  understood,  had  come  from  as 
far  off  as  it  would  take  a  blood  mare  in  a  dog-cart,  that  just  held 
them  and  no  room  to  spare,  an  hour  and  fifty  minutes  to  trot  back 
to,  over  a  good  road.  These  youths  were  in  such  tremendous 
spirits  that  when  the  last  farewells  of  the  dog-cart  died  away  on 
the  offing,  a  sort  of  holy  hush  seemed  to  ensue,  and  people  drew 
long  breaths,  and  smiled  excusefully — for  young  folk  are  young 
folk,  you  know — and  said  now  we  could  hear  ourselves  speak. 
Why  was  it  that  Challis,  not  unobservant,  for  all  his  own  hidden 
fever,  pictured  the  occupants  of  the  dog-cart,  beyond  the  offing, 
as  speaking  little  now,  each  dwelling  on  his  own  private  affairs? 
Was  it  because  four  corresponding  chits,  at  least,  had  hushed 
down  and  become  self-absorbed  and  absent?  And  where  was  the 
relevance  of  measles,  and  Challis's  thought  to  himself  that  it  was 
best  to  have  them  young? 

The  Rector  was  there,  too.  He  had  not  been  a  dancer,  but  had 
refrained  merely  because,  in  view  of  this  great  accession  of  force 
from  Jack's  and  Arthur's  friends  from  the  garrison,  no  further 
male  dancers  were  wanted.  When  Challis  reached  the  house,  after 
prolonging  a  voluntary  ostracism  in  the  garden-silences  until  he 
heard  the  guests  dispersing,  and  saw  Chinese  lanterns  being  sup- 
pressed, he  found  Athelstan  Taylor  just  on  the  point  of  taking 
leave.  He  was  explaining  to  her  ladyship  why  he  had  not  come 
to  dinner — for  it  seemed  he  had  been  invited — when  she  stopped 
him  with  a  question  about  one  of  the  children  who  came  into  his 
explanation.  His  reply  was :  "  Oh  yes ! — just  a  bad  inflammatory 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  405 

cold.  But  she'll  be  all  right  in  a  day  or  two.  Only  we  shall  have 
to  be  careful.  Good-night,  Lady  Arkroyd !  " 

" '  I  think  it  is  good-morrow,  is  it  not  ? ' "  said  Challis,  quoting. 
"  Is  Charles's  Wain  over  the  new  chimney,  I  wonder.  Perhaps, 
Kector,  you  know  which  Charles's  Wain  is.  I  don't.  I  always 
confuse  between  him  and  Orion." 

"  You'll  have  a  hard  job  to  do  so  now.  Why,  my  dear  fellow, 
can't  you  remember  how  we  talked  of  Orion  last  Autumn,  and  he 
was  hardly  visible  even  then  ? " 

"I  remember — in  your  garden.  You  must  show  him  to  me 
again  some  day ! "  The  Kector  looked  attentively  at  the  speaker. 
He  had  caught  the  minor  key  in  his  voice;  it  had  crept  in  along- 
side of  a  misgiving.  "  I  shall  lose  this  friend  I  would  so  gladly 
keep,  cloth  or  no ! " 

"  All  right !  But  you  mustn't  stop  away  till  Orion  comes. 
When  shall  I  tell  my  sister  to  lay  a  place  for  you?  I  believe  we 
are  clear  next  Thursday — will  that  do?"  He  took  out  a  note- 
book for  an  entry. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  said  Challis.  "  But  I'm  obliged — I  was  just  going 
to  tell  Lady  Arkroyd — I  am  obliged  to  return  to  town  to-mor- 
row. I  had  a  letter  to-day,  calling  me  back  on  business.  It's 
a  case  of  compulsion — oh  no! — nothing  wrong.  A  mere  matter  of 
business  relating  to  publication !  " 

Her  ladyship's  sorrow  at  losing  her  distinguished  guest  knew 
no  bounds.  She  must  look  forward  to  seeing  him  in  town,  where 
the  family  would  return  in  a  fortnight.  But  Mr.  Challis  would 
stay  over  to-morrow.  No! — Mr.  Challis  couldn't  do  any  such 
thing,  thank  you!  He  ought  to  go  by  the  early  train — was  sorry 
to  give  trouble — but  if  he  and  his  box  could  be  taken  to  the  rail- 
way early  enough  .  .  .  Oh  no ! — he  didn't  mind  breakfast  at 
6.30,  only  it  was  the  trouble!  But  as  Lady  Arkroyd's  heart  was 
rejoicing — hostesses'  hearts  do — at  her  guest  getting  clear  of  the 
mansion  before  she  was  out  of  bed,  she  was  able,  from  gratitude, 
to  make  her  grief  at  his  departing  at  all  almost  a  reality.  Other- 
wise she  was  consciously  relieved  that  he  should  go;  but  as  for  any 
mental  discomfort  on  the  score  of  her  daughter's  relations  with 
him — the  idea ! — a  middle-aged,  married,  professional  man !  The 
eleventh  century  to  the  rescue! 

Athelstan  Taylor  said  "  Good-bye,  then ! "  with  real  regret,  espe- 
cially as  there  was  something  wrong,  manifestly.  His  first  instinct 
was  to  forswear  driving  back  with  Miss  Caldecott  to  the  Rectory, 
and  to  persuade  Challis  to  walk  "part  of  the  way"  with  him, 
But — breakfast  at  6.30,  and  Charles's  Wain  over  the  new  chimney, 


406  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

or  its  equivalent!  After  all,  he  was  human.  Only,  what  a  pity! 
A  talk  with  him  might  have  meant  so  much  to  Challis. 

Sibyl's  regrets  merely  meant,  "  See  how  well-bred  I  am,  to  be 
able  to  conceal  my  rejoicing!  Go  away,  and  don't  call  in  Gros- 
venor  Square  when  I'm  there!  Do  not  give  my  kind  regards  to 
your  wife,  though  a  worthy  woman,  no  doubt ! "  That  is,  if  Chal- 
lis translated  an  overflow  of  suave  speech  rightly. 

Other  adieux  followed,  genuine  enough.  Mr.  Brownrigg  was 
honestly  sorry  to  lose  the  opportunity  of  showing  Mr.  Challis  those 
extracts  from  Graubosch.  Mr.  Wraxall  was  seriously  concerned 
at  not  being  able  to  supply  the  figures  necessary  to  a  complete  un- 
derstanding of  Differential  Equivalents,  a  system  by  which  all 
deficits  would  be  counteracted.  Mr.  Ramsey  Tomes  said  he  should 
always  regard  with  peculiar  satisfaction  the  opportunities  for 
which  he  was  indebted  to  his  friend  Sir  Murgatroyd,  of  shaking  the 
hand  of  an  author  of  whom  he  had  always  predicted  a  very  large 
number  of  remarkable  things,  "  considering  " — thought  his  author 
— "  that  he  does  not  appear  to  have  read  any  of  my  immortal 
works."  The  Baronet  himself  seemed  to  be  developing  a  scheme 
for  correlating  Feudalism  with  everything  else,  in  connection  with 
his  regret  that  Mr.  Challis  had  to  go  away  next  morning,  until 
her  ladyship  reminded  him  that  Mr.  Challis  had  to  go  to  bed.  So 
at  last  Mr.  Challis  went. 

Sibyl  hung  back.  Judith  had  not  gone  up  yet,  she  said,  in  an- 
swer to  her  mother's  "  I  suppose  you  do  mean  to  go  to  bed,  child, 
some  time ! "  Why,  then,  couldn't  she  leave  Judith  till  breakfast 
to-morrow?  But  her  ladyship  stopped  short  of  pushing  for  an  an- 
swer, for  she  mixed  "Good-night"  with  a  yawn,  and  got  away 
upstairs. 

Mr.  Elphinstone  testified  discreetly  that  he  could  hear  Miss  Ark- 
royd  coming.  Yes — there  she  was!  Who  was  that  with  her? 
Only  the  young  girl,  Tilley,  miss !  This  was  what  the  name  Cin- 
tilla  had  become,  naturally,  in  the  mouths  of  the  household. 

"  Go  up,  child,  and  see  that  my  hot  water  isn't  cold.  Cold  hot 
water  is  detestable.  .  .  .  Yes,  Sibyl  ? "  This  was  in  answer  to  a 
particular  method  of  saying  nothing,  containing  an  intention  to 
say  something  disagreeable  presently. 

"  I  didn't  say  anything." 

"  Please  don't  be  tiresome.  You  know  what  I  mean,  quite  well. 
What  was  it  you  didn't  say?" 

"  I  suppose  you  know  Mr.  Challis  is  going  away  to-morrow  ? " 

Judith's  demeanour  is  exemplary.    Something  pre-engages  her. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  407 

Mr.  Challis  must  come  after.  She  calls  the  little  ex-da irymaiden 
back;  and  then,  turning  to  Mr.  Elphinstone,  waiting  patiently  to 
be  the  last  to  retire,  says  to  him,  "  What  is  good  for  a  burn, 
Elphinstone  ? " — as  to  a  universal  referee.  He  replies,  "  I  always 
use  olive-oil,  miss,"  as  if  he  belonged  to  a  particular  school  of 
singed  butlers.  "  Give  the  child  some  for  me,"  says  Judith ;  and 
then,  being  free  to  give  attention  to  her  sister,  goes  on  with, 
"  Yes,  what  is  it  ?  Oh  yes !  Do  I  know  Mr.  Challis  is  going  away 
to-morrow?  Of  course  I  know  Mr.  Challis  is  going  away  to- 
morrow." 

"  I  thought  you  did,"  says  Sibyl.  This  is  hardly  consecutive,  but 
Judith's  equanimity  is  impregnable.  No  impertinences  or  ag- 
gressions are  to  affect  it,  that's  clear!  She  is  easily  able  to  com- 
pare the  watch  on  her  wrist  with  the  hall-clock,  and  to  find  their 
testimony  is  the  same,  for  all  their  difference  of  size,  before  she 
makes  further  answer. 

"  Mr.  Challis  is  called  away  by  business.  So  he  says.  .  .  . 
Good-night !  "  Cintilla,  or  Tilley,  will  bring  the  magic  oil ;  so 
Judith  goes  upstairs  leisurely.  Her  sister  follows.  But  she  has 
not  said  good-night  yet. 

Telepathy  makes  very  funny  terms,  sometimes,  between  sisters. 
And  a  fact  ignored,  that  has  called  for  comment,  may  broach  a 
reciprocal  consciousness  that  will  never  be  at  rest  without  speech 
in  the  end.  This  time  it  is  that  burn,  which  Sibyl  has  said 
nothing  about — has  asked  no  explanation  of.  And  both  know  it. 

At  the  stair-top  both  sisters  say  good-night,  with  a  sort  of  deci- 
sion that  seems  overloaded  for  the  occasion.  But  the  valediction 
seems  inoperative;  as  both  wait,  for  no  apparent  reason.  Then 
Sibyl  speaks  in  a  quick  undertone: 

"You  wouldn't  listen  to  me,  Ju  .  .  .  No,  you  needn't  be 
frightened — they're  not  coming  yet.  ..."  For  Judith  had 
glanced  back  down  the  staircase.  "You  wouldn't  listen,  and  now 
you  see  what  has  come  of  it." 

"  What  has  come  of  it  ?  " 

"Judith! — do  you  think  I  am  blind,  or  do  you  take  me  for  a 
fool?" 

"Yes,  dear — the  last!  But  go  on.  I  can  wait  any  time,  in  rea- 
son, for  an  explanation."  She  embarked  on  a  period  of  waiting, 
gracefxilly  indulgent,  a  tranquil  listener. 

"Do  you  suppose  I  am  taken  in  by  this  story?" 

"What  story?" 

"This  story  of  Mr.  Challis's  going  home  on  business." 

"  It's  a  very  simple  story." 


408  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Very  simple  ...  oh  dear ! — there's  the  girl.  I'll  tell  you  in 
the  morning.  ..." 

"  I  want  to  hear  now.  .  .  .  Put  it  in  my  room,  child,  and  go 
to  bed."  And  Cintilla  says,  "  Yes,  miss ! "  and  vanishes  to  an  in- 
nocent pillow.  "  I  want  to  hear  now,  and  perhaps  you'll  be  so 
kind  as  to  tell  me.." 

"  Come  into  my  room !  " 

"  Certainly !  "  Judith  complies  without  reserves,  dropping  grace- 
fully into  an  armchair,  after  placing  her  candle  in  safety.  She 
makes  a  parade  of  her  waiting  patience.  Sibyl,  all  aflame  with 
flashing  eyes,  turns  on  her  after  closing  the  door  carefully. 

"  After  what  I  have  seen  this  evening,  Judith,  I  know  what  to 
think.  .  .  .  No! — it's  no  use  your  denying  it."  Then  in  a 
lower  voice,  with  the  flush  on  her  cheeks  spreading  to  her  temples, 
she  adds:  "Not  an  hour  ago  I  saw  that  man  Challis.  ..."  She 
pauses  on  the  edge  of  her  indictment. 

"  You  saw  that  man  Challis  .    .    .  ? " 

"  I  saw  that  man  Challis  .  .  .  yes ! — I  don't  care,  Judith  .  .  . 
making  love  to  you  in  Tophet,  with  his  arm  round  your  waist." 

"  And  where  were  you  ? " 

"  Up  here  in  this  room.  My  hair  came  down,  dancing.  And  I 
looked  out  of  that  window  and  saw  you.  Oh,  Judith !  " 

"  Oh,  Sibyl ! "  Judith  repeats  mockingly.  She  goes  to  the  win- 
dow with  easy  deliberation.  It  is  wide  open  on  the  summer  night, 
for  heat.  "  Of  course  one  sees  Tophet  from  here,"  she  says.  "  But 
how  you  could  distinguish  Mr.  Challis's  arm,  or  my  waist,  is  a 
mystery  to  me,  at  this  distance." 

"  Have  I  no  eyesight,  Judith  ?  I  tell  you  I  saw  it  all,  as  I 
stood  there  where  you  are  now.  I  saw  him  set  fire  to  your  scarf 
thing  with  his  cigar.  And  his  arm  was  round  you,  and  he  was 
looking  over  your  shoulder.  I  saw  it  by  the  blaze-up,  as  plain  as  I 
see  you  now !  " 

Judith  is  undisturbed.  "I  see  you  have  withdrawn  my  waist," 
she  says.  She  circles  her  diamonded  fingers  round  its  girth,  and 
seems  not  dissatisfied  with  the  span  they  cannot  cover.  "  But 
you've  got  the  story  wrong,  little  sister." 

"  Being  offensive  won't  do  you  any  good." 

"You  are  my  little  sister,  Sib  dear!  And  you're  a  goose.  Mr. 
Challis  showed  me  a  letter,  and  was  kind  enough  to  hold  a  lighted 
match  for  me  to  read  it  by." 

Sibyl  makes  no  reply.  Her  eyes  remain  fixed  on  her  sister  as 
slip  turns  a  bracelet  on  her  arm  uneasily.  Evidently  she  only  half 
believes  her.  Can  she  be  lying?  It  is  a  matter  on  which  a  woman 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  4Q9 

who  has  never  lied  before  will  lie  freely.  One  who  has  flirted,  at 
such  close  quarters,  with  another  woman's  husband,  will  tell  her 
sister  lies  rather  than  admit  it.  Sibyl  wishes,  on  the  whole,  that 
Judith  would  look  her  in  the  face  as  she  speaks,  instead  of  being- 
so  wrapped  up  in  a  landscape  she  knows  by  heart. 

Judith  seems  inclined  to  get  out  of  hearing  of  that  subject — 
has  had  enough  of  it.  "  It  seems  a  shame,"  she  says,  "  to  go  to 
bed  on  such  a  heavenly  night.  But  I  suppose  one  must !  " 

Sibyl  is  not  going  to  be  fubbed  off  with  any  such  evasions.  She 
has  made  up  her  mind,  this  evening — this  is  in  strict  confidence — 
to  accept  a  peer's  son  who  will  be  a  peer  himself  when  his  father 
ceases  to  be  one,  and  she  is  keenly  alive  to  the  desirability  of 
avoiding  family  scandals  just  at  this  crisis.  If  Judith  is  going 
to  bring  a  slur  on  an  honourable  name,  thinks  Sibyl,  let  her  do  it 
after  my  coronet  is  landed.  Her  blood  is  up. 

"  What  was  there  in  the  letter  ? "  she  says  bluntly. 

"  Sibyl  dear,  really !  "  There  is  amusement  in  Judith's  tone,  as 
of  forbearance  towards  juvenility. 

Her  sister  mocks  her.  "  Yes — me  dear,  really ! "  she  says. 
"  What  was  there  in  the  letter  ? " 

"May  the  catechism  stop,  if  I  tell  you?"  The  yawn  that  be- 
gins in  these  words  lasts  into  what  follows :  "  Oh,  no,  I  don't  mind 
telling  you,  child!  There  was  nothing  to  make  a  secret  of.  It 
was  from  his  affectionate  wife — poor  fellow!  He  really  deserves 
something  less  dowdy.  Let  me  see,  now,  how  did  it  run?  Her 
dear  Titus — that  was  it! — she  had  had  another  letter  from  me, 
pressing  her  to  come.  Hadn't  written  back.  Would  her  dear 
Titus  make  me  understand  that  she  was  too  much  wanted  at  home 
to  come  away  just  now?  Besides,  she  did  not  care  for  society,  as 
her  dear  Titus  perfectly  well  knew.  She  would  only  be  in  the 
way  if  she  did  come.  It  was  much  better  she  should  have  her 
friends,  and  he  his — spelt  wrong:  ei  instead  of  ie.  Do  you  want 
to  know  all  the  rest  of  the  important  letter?  Very  well!  She 
had  spent  yesterday  evening  with  grandmamma  at  Pulse  Hill,  and 
dear  Charlotte  was  just  gone.  He  was  not  to  hurry  back  on  her 
account,  as  it  was  easier  for — some  name  of  a  cook — when  he  was 
away.  He  had  better  stay  as  long  as  he  could,  where  he  was  being 
amused  and  flattered.  And  she  was  his  affectionate  wife  Mari- 
anne. .  .  .  Have  you  been  flattering  Mr.  Titus  Scroop,  Sibyl 
dear?" 

Sibyl  ignored  the  question.  "  Tulse  Hill,  I  suppose,"  said  she 
thoughtfully.  "  Who's  dear  Charlotte,  I  wonder?  " 

"A  Mrs.  Eldridge.    Nobody  you  know!" 


410  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  I  wonder  if  she's  good  for  dear  Marianne."  Simple  truth 
must  now  and  then  tax  credulity,  or  be  excluded  from  fiction.  The 
whole  of  the  conversation  is  given  above,  and  where  or  when  on 
earth  Sibyl  found  in  it  anything  to  warrant  this  wonderment  of 
hers  Heaven  only  knows!  However,  one  can  wonder  at  nothing, 
oneself,  in  these  days  of  Marconigraphs.  Sibyl  ended  her  speech 
with,  "  The  woman's  as  jealous  as  she  can  be — one  can  see  that !  " 

"  Can  one  ?  .  .  .  oh,  I  dare  say  one  can,  dear !  Only  she's  no 
concern  of  mine.  Suppose  we  go  to  bed." 

"  If  you  were  Mr.  Challis's  wife,  you  might  feel  just  as  she  does. 
And  if  you  were  not  really  his  wife,  it  would  be  all  the  worse." 

"  Of  course,  when  one's  neither,  one  doesn't  care."  This  was 
faulty  in  construction,  yet  neither  sister  felt  that  it  could  not  be 
understood. 

The  hardships  of  a  forgotten  casual  on  the  landing  outside  were 
recognized  with,  "Oh  dear!  Why  didn't  you  go  to  bed?  It's 
nearly  two  o'clock."  And  then  sleep  came  in  view,  for  those  who 
were  at  home  to  him. 

If  Judith  said,  "Not  at  home,"  was  it  any  wonder?  Think 
what  an  amount  of  dissimulation  she  had  gone  through  since  that 
revelation  of  Challis's  in  the  garden — since  what  may  have  been  a 
discovery  about  herself  of  something  she  may  have  suspected  be- 
fore, but  had  half-contemptuously  dismissed !  She  may  have  more 
than  once  asked  herself  the  question,  "Do  I  possibly  love  this 
man  ? "  and  laughed  a  negative.  But  oh,  the  difference  it  makes 
when  a  man  has  said  roundly,  "  I  carry  your  image  in  my  heart, 
and  cannot  be  quit  of  it."  She  had  played  with  edged  tools,  and 
had  cut  herself.  The  burn  on  her  shoulder  was  not  the  only  result 
of  tampering  with  fire  thai  day,  for  her.  Most  surely  for  her  own 
sake,  and  his,  concealment  was  the  sacramental  word,  for  the  mo- 
ment. She  had  let  him  know  she  was  unable  to  say  she  did  not 
love  him;  that  was  all!  But  an  intent  she  had  half  formed  in 
the  very  core  of  her  heart  must  be  hidden  from  him.  He  must 
have  no  suspicion  that  she  would  lend  herself  to  a  scheme  that 
would  take  advantage  of  a  wretched  legal  shuffle — one  of  the 
most  wretched  that  even  Themis  has  scheduled  as  a  shift  for  the 
cancelling  of  a  solemn  contract.  Was  she  quite  prepared  to  say 
she  would  not,  for  her  own  sake,  jump  at  an  expedient  granted  by 
the  solemnity  of  Law,  to  make  Dishonour  seem  honourable,  and 
disallow  the  claims  of  this  stupid,  commonplace,  would-be  wife, 
who  was  no  wife  at  all?  And  who  knew  it,  for  that  matter. 

For  this  intention  had  sounded  its  first  note  in  her  heart  as  she 
read  that  postscript,  when  the  last  match  was  all  but  burned  out. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  411 

She  could  remember  every  word  of  it,  as  she  paced  to  and  fro  in  the 
silence  of  her  bedroom,  fostering  the  idea  it  suggested.  "  I  sup- 
pose you  know  " — so  poor  fool  Marianne  had  written,  in  her  mo- 
mentary fit  of  spleen  and  obduracy — "  what  mamma  always  says 
about  you  and  me — that  we  are  not  really  married  at  all.  If  so,  I 
ought  to  go  back  and  live  with  her,  and  the  sooner  the  better.  Then 
you  would  be  free,  and  I  suppose  it  would  be  Judith."  For  that 
was  what  the  stupid,  exasperated  woman  had  actually  written,  and 
next  morning  would  have  been  so  glad  to  plunder  the  postman's 
bag  of,  when  he  disembowelled  the  vermilion  pillar-box  at  the 
corner. 

But,  as  for  Judith,  her  business  was  to  bury  the  suggestion — 
which  she  had  read,  and  Challis  had  not — in  her  heart.  Had  she 
not  a  right  to  hide  her  cloven  foot,  if  it  was  one — to  wear  over  it  a 
pretext  of  her  reverence  for  the  bond  that  linked  this  man  to  his 
dowdy  wife,  until  it  broke  asunder  from  its  natural  rottenness? 
What  was  that  nauseous  saying  male  man  was  so  fond  of  ?  "  All's 
fair  in  Love ! "  and  what  the  foetid  interpretations  he  felt  no 
shame  to  put  upon  it?  Why  was  all  the  selfishness  and  meanness 
to  belong  to  one  sex  alone? 

And  meanwhile  Challis  himself  was  tossing  through  the  fever 
of  a  sleepless  night,  until  some  wretched  sleep  was  broken  by 
Samuel  calling  him  at  6.30  in  the  morning,  and  the  hoot  of  a 
motor  outside.  Samuel  explained  that  he  had  come  later  than 
the  first  time  fixed,  as  his  lordship  had  placed  the  Panhard  at 
Mr.  Challis's  disposal,  and  it  would  more  than  make  up  the  time. 
Challis  was  grateful. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

HOW  LIZARANN  AND  JOAN  PLAYED  TRUANT.  OP  A  RIDE  IN  A  MOTOR, 
AND  ITS  BAD  EFFECTS.  HOW  LIZARANN  CONVALESCED,  AND  JUDITH 
WALKED  HOME  FROM  CHURCH  WITH  THE  RECTOR.  HOW  MARIANNE 
HAD  BOLTED  WITH  THE  TWO  CHILDREN 

LIZARANN  was,  of  course,  the  patient  Mr.  Taylor  spoke  of.  But 
it  was  all  her  own  fault,  said  Public  Opinion,  that  she  had  such  a 
bad  inflammatory  cold.  If  she  and  Joan  had  been  good,  obedient 
children,  and  done  as  they  were  told  when  they  came  home  from 
the  tea-party  at  Royd,  instead  of  giving  Aunt  Bessy  the  slip  and 
running  away  to  Daddy  at  Mrs.  Forks's  cottage,  all  would  have 
been  well.  But  be  lenient  to  Lizarann!  It  was  all  through  her 
anxiety  that  old  Christopher  should  have  his  bicarbonate  of  soda. 
Her  anxiety  on  his  behalf  was  great,  although  she  did  not  know 
him  personally. 

"Maten't  Phoebe  and  Jones  go  round  to  old  Mrs.  Forks,  where 
Daddy  is,  and  bring  it  screwed  up  in  piper  like  acrost  the  road 
to  Mr.  Curtis's  ? "  So  Lizarann  had  said — for  she  really  believed 
that  Joan's  name  was  one  and  the  same  with  that  of  the  Wash,  in 
Cazenove  Street — and  Aunt  Bessy's  negative  had  been  emphatic. 

"  Certainly  not,  my  dear !  At  this  time  of  the  evening !  Why, 
it's  past  six  o'clock.  .  .  .  Yes,  you  and  Joan  may  run  on  in 
front,  only  don't  get  over  the  gate  till  I  come.  The  gate  of  the 
next  field,  you  know."  But  when  Aunt  Bessy  and  Phoebe  reached 
that  gate — where  were  Lizarann  and  Joan  ?  The  wicked  imps  had 
gone  to  Mrs.  Forks's. 

The  worst  of  it  was  that  when  the  Rector  had  personally  recap- 
tured the  truants,  and  was  taking  them  home,  a  motor-car,  with  a 
lady  and  gentleman  in  it,  passed  them,  going  at  speed.  That,  as 
they  escaped  alive,  was  no  harm.  But,  having  passed,  it  stopped, 
and  something  disagreed  with  it  all  through  the  colloquy  that  fol- 
lowed. 

"Isn't  that  Mr.  Taylor?    Can't  we  give  you  a  lift?" 

"You're  going  the  wrong  way.    And  we're  too  numerous." 

"  Nonsense !  Any  amount  of  room !  And  it  won't  take  us  three 
minutes  to  run  you  back  to  the  Rectory.  Jump  in." 

The  Rector  hesitated  a  moment.    It  was  just  on  to  dinner-time 

412 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  413 

at  the  Hall,  and  it  seemed  a  shame  to  make  this  lady  and  gen- 
tleman late.  But  Lizarann  was  coughing  again.  It  may  have 

been  the  petrol,  but  still !  Then,  too,  Aunt  Bessy's  anxiety 

would  be  over  all  the  sooner.  And  there  were  those  children  al- 
most frantic  with  delight  at  the  idea  of  a  ride  in  a  motor! 

So  he  agreed.  And  it  was  fun !  Only  there  were  two  drawbacks 
— one,  that  it  was  over  so  soon;  the  other,  that  no  sooner  were 
they  deposited  at  the  Kectory  gate,  and  the  lady  and  gentleman  in 
the  motor  off  at  great  speed  to  be  in  time  for  dinner,  than  Lizarann 
had  such  a  terrible  attack  of  coughing  that  Miss  Caldecott  and 
her  brother-in-law  were  quite  alarmed. 

The  report  the  Rector  gave  to  Lady  Arkroyd  was  too  sanguine. 
Bad  inflammatory  colds  don't  yield  to  treatment  in  a  couple  of 
hours,  which  was  about  how  long  it  had  been  at  work  by  the  time 
he  and  Aunt  Bessy  drove  away  to  the  Hall,  to  come  in  after  din- 
ner, having  been  forced  to  cry  off,  with  apology  and  explanation, 
owing  to  the  escapade  of  the  children. 

Lizarann's  didn't  yield  to  treatment  for  many  days,  and  during 
that  period  was  a  serious  source  of  alarm  to  all  her  circle  of  friends 
at  the  Rectory,  and  a  frequent  subject  of  inquiry  by  interested  out- 
siders. For  the  little  maid  had  a  happy  faculty  of  remaining  in 
the  memory  of  chance  acquaintances.  Also,  it  was  generally  un- 
derstood in  the  neighbourhood  that  she  was  a  delicate  protegee  of 
the  Rector's  friend's  sister,  Adeline  Fossett,  and  had  been  sent 
away  from  town  to  get  the  benefit  of  the  air  at  Royd.  So  Lizarann 
got  quite  her  fair  share  of  public  interest. 

But  her  attack  must  have  been  a  sharp  one,  or  we  may  rely 
upon  it  she  wouldn't  have  been  kept  in  bed  next  day,  and  more 
days  after  next  day.  And  Dr.  Sidrophel — it  wasn't  his  real  name, 
mind  you ! — wouldn't  have  said,  as  he  did  till  Lizarann  really  felt 
quite  sick  of  hearing  it,  that  it  would  be  as  well  to  continue  the 
poultices,  for  the  present,  as  a  precaution.  Her  own  view,  to  be 
sure,  was  that  inflammation  was  the  result  of  mustard  poultices 
and  stethoscopes  primarily,  and  that  it  was  bound  to  get  worse  if 
you  had  to  put  a  glass  tube  in  your  mouth  at  the  bidding  of  well- 
meaning  friends.  But  she  concealed  these  convictions  in  defer- 
ence to  public  opinion,  and  did  everything  she  was  told  to  do,  how- 
ever gross  the  infatuation  might  be  that  instituted  the  obnoxious 
treatment.  Her  conviction  that  she  had,  intrinsically,  nothing  the 
matter  with  her  was,  however,  not  one  to  be  shaken  lightly.  She 
went  so  far  once  as  to  say  so  to  Dr.  Pordage — that  was  his  real 
name ! — who  replied,  "  Oh  ah,  that's  it,  is  it  ?  Nothing  the  mat- 
ter! But  you  will  have,  if  you  don't  look  alive,  as  safe  as  a  but- 


414  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ton !  So  there  we  are,  little  miss !  " — but  absently,  as  though  she 
was  a  child  and  wouldn't  understand  him — and  blotted  the  pre- 
scription he  had  been  writing.  But  Lizarann  heard  every  word, 
and  resolved  to  look  alive,  so  far  as  in  her  lay,  whenever  an  op- 
portunity came.  Meanwhile,  none  being  manifest,  she  reflected  a 
good  deal  on  buttons,  wondering  what  was  the  nature  of  the 
security  they  tendered,  and  why  she  had  never  heard  it  before. 

When  Mr.  Yorick — the  name  she  preferred  for  the  Rector,  be- 
cause, you  see,  Miss  Fossett  must  know  best — came  to  pay  her  a 
visit  shortly  after,  she  inquired  on  this  point,  giving  the  whole  of 
the  doctor's  speech,  and  making  herself  cough.  Now,  Mr.  Yorick 
always  talked  to  Lizarann  as  if  she  was  a  sensible  person;  and  if 
there  was  one  attribute  for  which  the  child  loved  him  more  dearly 
than  another,  it  was  that.  But  her  devotion  to  him  was  so  com- 
plete— second  only  to  her  love  for  her  Daddy — that  analysis  of  it 
was  absurd. 

"  Was  he  talking  to  you,  or  talking  to  himself,  Lizarann  ? "  said 
he,  sitting  by  the  bed  with  the  patient's  hand  in  his.  It  was  small 
and  feverish. 

The  reply  called  for  reflection.  Having  thought  well  over  it, 
Lizarann  said  decisively :  "  Bofe !  " 

"Was  he  writing  all  the  while?" 

"  Yass !  "  Nods  helped  the  emphasis.  "  All  the  while !  Scritch- 
scratch ! " 

"That  was  it,  Lizarann!  Dr.  Sidrophel  can't  write  and  hear 
what  he  says  to  himself  at  the  same  time.  So  nobody  knows  what 
he  means."  But  the  little  woman's  great  eyes  were  full  of  doubt- 
ful inquiry,  and  more  must  be  said.  "I  expect  he  only  meant 
that  if  you  went  out  in  the  air  you  would  get  your  cough  back.  So 
you  must  just  look  alive  and  lie  in  bed."  It  was  plausible,  and 
would  have  to  do  for  the  present.  The  button  question  might 
stand  over. 

"  Mustn't  I  go  and  see  Daddy  where  Mrs.  Forks  is  ? " 

"  Yes,  in  a  little  while.  Daddy  will  come  and  see  you  every 
day." 

"  And  bring  his  crutches  to  come  upstairs  with  ?  " 

"  Daddy  left  his  crutches  here  yesterday.  To  be  ready  for  him 
whenever  he  comes." 

"  And  not  tear  a  hole  in  the  drugget? " 

"  Not  if  he  goes  gently  and  I  put  my  hand  on  his  back !  " 

"Which  hand?" 

"  This  one  I've  got  hold  of  you  with,  Miss  Coupland !  Any  more 
questions  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  415 

LIzarann  pursed  up  her  lips  and  shook  her  head.  But  she  re- 
considered her  decision.  "  Yass !  About  Dr.  Side — Dr. 
Side  ..." 

"Dr.  Sidrophel?    What  about  him?" 

"  Why's  his  real  nime  Pordage  ? "  She  had  the  name  very  pat, 
showing  close  observation  and  reflection. 

Mr.  Yorick  had  to  consider  the  point.  "  Well !  "  said  he  pres- 
ently, "  I  admit  it's  rather  a  bad  job.  But  there's  no  way  out  of 
it  now.  It  is  his  real  name,  and  that's  all  about  it !  "  But  Lizar- 
ann  looked  dissatisfied.  "  We  may  call  him  Dr.  Sidrophel  behind 
his  back,  Lizarann,"  added  he. 

"  Supposing  he  was  to  hear  us  talking  behind  his  back,  and  was 
to  listen  behind  his  back  .  .  . ! "  Hypothetical  knavery  being 
admitted  between  these  two,  as  a  necessity  in  ingenious  fictions, 
Mr.  Yorick  did  not  think  a  homily  on  truth-telling  necessary  at 
this  point.  In  fact,  he  counselled  bold  duplicity,  to  Lizarann's 
great  relief.  "We  should  have  to  go  far  enough  off,  Lizarann," 
said  he.  And  the  stage  direction  indicated  was  so  pleasant  to  her 
unfledged  mind  that  she  utilized  it  to  develope  the  subject  further 
— kept  the  curtain  up,  as  it  were ! 

"  Then  if  we  wentited  far  enough  off,  you  could  tell  me  why  his 
nime  was  Dr.  Spiderophel,  too."  She  dashed  intrepidly  at  the 
name,  and  nearly  captured  it. 

"  Of  course  I  could,  and  he  wouldn't  hear  one  word." 

"  And  what  should  you  sye  ? "  Lizarann  gave  a  slight  leap  in 
bed,  from  pleasant  anticipation.  She  was  told  to  lie  quiet,  and 
she  should  hear. 

And  that  is  how  it  was  that  when  Miss  Caldecott  came  in, 
dressed  cap-a-pie  for  public  worship,  a  prayer-book  in  a  gloved 
hand — for  it  was  Sunday  morning — to  remind  her  brother-in-law 
that  the  bells  were  going  to  begin,  and  arouse  him  to  his  duties, 
she  found  him  telling  how  Sidrophel  was  an  astronomer  who  took 
a  fly  in  his  telescope  for  an  elephant  on  the  moon;  and  that  this 
legend  was  only  partly  cleared  up  by  its  narrator.  Telescopes  and 
stethoscopes  remained  imperfectly  differentiated  in  Lizarann's 
mind.  And  Mr.  Yorick's  temporary  acceptance  of  her  pronuncia- 
tion led  to  a  misapprehension  about  spiders  and  flies.  Did  this 
astronomer  catch  that  fly,  or  did  the  fly  get  away?  Lizarann 
treasured  hopes  on  its  behalf,  for  the  next  chapter  in  the  story. 

But  she  felt  it  her  duty  to  look  alive,  and  lie  quite  quiet  in  bed, 
although — law  bless  you! — she  had  nothing  the  matter  with  her. 
So  she  lay  and  watched  a  greedy  bee,  who  seemed  bent  on  leaving 
no  honey  in  that  jessamine,  at  any  rate,  that  came  across  the  open 


416  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lattice,  and  had  its  say  in  the  mixed  scents  of  hay  and  roses  that 
came  in  out  of  the  sunshine  for  Lizarann  to  get  her  share  of  them. 
She  lay  and  listened  to  the  bells,  and  wondered  why  the  sound  rose 
and  fell,  and  decided  at  first  that  it  was  done  for  the  purpose,  and 
was  the  right  way.  But  then,  how  did  Nonconformity  afar  man- 
age to  do  it  so  exactly  like?  For  the  Chapel  tinkle  rose  and  fell, 
too.  Then  came  the  footsteps  on  the  garden-gravel;  one  big  one, 
the  Rector's,  and  many  small  ones.  And  Lizarann  was  so  sorry 
she  wasn't  to  go  to  Church,  where  it  was  her  Sunday-wont,  in  these 
days,  to  drive  a  coach-and-six  through  the  first  Commandment,  and 
worship  Athelstan  Taylor  on  his  pulpit-altar  in  a  heart-felt  way, 
while  admitting  official  obligations  elsewhere. 

But  she  couldn't  go  this  time,  and,  what  was  more,  she  had  to  go 
on  looking  alive  and  lying  quiet  while  Phrebe  and  Joan  shouted 
good-byes  up  at  the  window,  as  though  they  were  off  to  New 
Zealand;  because,  you  see,  Lizarann  had  solemnly  promised,  if  they 
did  so,  not  to  shout  back  and  make  herself  cough. 

"  She  hardly  coughed  at  all  when  I  was  with  her,"  said  the  Rec- 
tor, on  his  way  to  his  weekly  piece  de  resistance — his  Sunday  ser- 
mon. "  I  can't  help  thinking  Dr.  Sidrophel  may  be  making  his 
fly  out  an  elephant  this  time." 

"  Perhaps,  dear !  But  the  fly  may  become  an  elephant.  He's 
really  very  clever,  although  you  do  make  such  game  of  him.  You 
see,  he  was  quite  right  about  poor  Gus." 

"Ah,  dear,  dear! — yes.  But  then  he  says,  if  Gus  got  into  a 
better  climate,  he  might  make  old  bones  yet." 

"  So  Gus  will,  by  God's  mercy,  dear !  But  I  mean,  Dr.  Pordage 
said — and  I  do  not  see  that  I  am  bound  to  call  him  out  of  his 
name — that  in  the  end  Gus  would  have  to  give  in,  and  go.  You 
see,  he  was  right !  Joan ! " 

"  Yes,  aunty  darling!  " 

"Don't  turn  your  toes  in  and  out,  and  whistle.  It's  not  at  all 
lady-like,  and  there's  Mrs.  Theophilus  Silverton  just  behind  in  the 
pony-carriage."  Joan  toned  her  behaviour  down  to  meet  the 
prejudices  of  local  society.  "You  do  see,  don't  you,  that  Dr. 
Pordage  was  right  ? "  For  this  good  lady  wouldn't  glisser,  and 
always  appuyait  until  her  accuracy  had  been  entered  on  the  min- 
utes. Her  brother-in-law  said,  "  Quite  right,  aunty ! "  And  she 
said,  "  Very  well,  then ! "  and  seemed  to  find  the  fact  that  she 
was  right  almost  a  set-off  against  the  painful  fact  she  was  right 
about. 

For  Dr.  Sidrophel's  shrewd  forecast  about  the  Rev.  Augustus 
Fossett  meant  exile  for  that  invalid;  and  this  exile  had  already 


417 

taken  form  in  the  proposal  that  Gus  should  accept  a  chaplaincy  of 
an  English  church  in  Tunis,  which  had  been  offered  to  him. 
Athelstan  Taylor  was  keen  on  his  acceptance  of  the  post;  as  he 
would  have  been  on  the  amputation  of  his  own  right  hand,  if  he 
had  seen  therein  any  benefit  for  his  friend.  But  his  face  went 
very  sad  over  it  as  he  walked  on  in  silence. 

His  mind  was  back  in  old  Eton  and  Oxford  days,  when  they 
were  all  young  together — Gus  and  his  sister  Adeline,  and  he,  and 
the  mother  of  those  two  youngsters  in  front,  who  were  being  so 
decorous,  pending  the  approach  of  the  pony-chariot  behind.  And 
this  semi-sister  of  his  own,  beside  him  now,  who  was  always  a 
sort  of  thorn  in  the  Rector's  innermost  conscience.  For  hadn't 
she — or  had  she — foregone  wedlock  and  babes  of  her  own  for  the 
sake  of  her  sister's  and  his?  The  sort  of  thing  no  one  could  ever 
really  know !  And  what  would  happen  if  this  confounded  De- 
ceased Wife's  Sister  bill  were  to  become  law  ?  That  was  the  cul- 
de-sac  these  explorations  often  led  him  to,  more  and  more  as  the 
chances  increased  of  a  majority  for  the  Bill  in  the  House  of  Peers. 
But  it  was  a  cul-de-sac.  Why  think  about  it  ?  Was  not  each  day's 
evil  sufficient  for  it,  and  something  over  ? 

The  pony-carriage  gained  and  gained — overhauled  the  pedestri- 
ans— underwent  a  period  of  rapture  that  it  should  absolutely  see 
them  alive  in  the  flesh — and  forged  ahead  unfeelingly.  But  it  had 
not  expelled  from  the  Rector's  mind  a  something  that  it  had  met 
with  in  that  cul-de-sac — what  was  it? — oh  yes,  he  knew! 

"  That's  a  very  sad  business,  I'm  afraid,  of  poor  Challis's." 

But  Miss  Caldecott  cannot  honour  this  remark  immediately. 
Deportment  calls  for  attention.  "  You're  not  to  begin  again,  the 
minute  they're  out  of  sight,  Joan.  .  .  .  What  business,  dear?" 

"  I  thought  you  knew  about  it  ? " 

"No,  I  know  nothing.     Only  what  Lady  Arkroyd  said." 

"  Exactly !     Well — it's  a  very  painful  affair." 

"  No  doubt,  dear !     Phoebe,  don't  hunch  your  shoulders." 

"  Come,  Bess,  be  a  little  sorry  for  the  poor  chap !  I  don't  believe 
it's  his  fault." 

"  Oh,  I  dare  say  not !  I  know  nothing  about  it.  And  I  don't 
want  to  know  anything  about  people  of  that  sort." 

"What  sort?" 

"  You  know  what  I  mean,  Athel.  Literary,  f reethinking  sort  of 
people.  Them  and  their  wives !  " 

"  I  know  quite  well  what  you  mean,  Bess."  As  Athelstan  does 
know,  he  says  so  honestly,  instead  of  allowing  his  sister-in-law  to 
attempt  to  explain  her  meaning,  which  he  is  well  aware  she  cannot 


418  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  But  tell  me  again  what  Lady  Arkroyd  said  about  Challis  and  his 
wife." 

"  Just  what  I  told  you." 

"  Which  was  .    .    .  ? " 

"  That  they  had  quarrelled,  and  she  had  gone  away  to  her 
mother.  The  day  after  he  went  back." 

"Was  that  all?" 

"Yes — I  think  so!     Yes,  there  was  nothing  else." 

"  How  came  Lady  Arkroyd  to  know  ? " 

The  lady  becomes  suddenly  explicit.  "  My  dear,  it's,  no,  use, 
your,  catechizing  me!  For  I  tell  you  I  know  nothing  about  it! 
You  must  ask  Lady  Arkroyd  yourself.  There  they  are !  "  Mean- 
ing that  carriage-wheels  are  audible,  identifiable  as  the  Hall  com- 
ing to  Church. 

And  then  the  Rector  had  to  mind  his  ps  and  qs.  For  he  hadn't 
so  much  as  thought  of  the  text  he  should  preach  on. 

However,  he  acquitted  himself  well,  as  he  had  done  a  hundred 
times  under  analogous  circumstances.  And  then,  as  soon  as  he 
felt  at  liberty  to  be  secular,  his  mind  went  back  to  the  profane 
author's  domestic  affairs. 

"  My  dear  Lady  Arkroyd,  what's  this  about  our  friend  Challis 
and  his  wife  ? " 

The  Baronet,  who  is  close  by — for  he  is  a  punctual  church- 
goer :  it  is  feudal — says,  inf ormedly,  "  A  row  in  that  quarter ! " 
nods  sagaciously,  and  contains  further  information  in  closed  lips. 
Her  ladyship  supposes  it's  the  usual  thing;  need  we  know  anything 
about  it?  She  dimisses  nuptial  quarrels,  presumably  resulting 
from  infidelities,  with  graceful  languor;  perhaps  reserving  such 
as  are  within  the  pale,  sanctioned  by  titles.  Judith,  with  the  most 
perfect  self-command,  immovably  graceful,  says  sweetly:  "Is  there 
a  row  between  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Challis?"  On  which  her  mother 
suddenly  becomes  petulant  and  human — comes  down  from  Olympus 
as  it  were — exclaiming :  "  Why,  Ju,  you  know  you  told  me  so 
yourself,  child ! — what  nonsense !  " 

"  Perhaps  I  used  the  wrong  word,"  says  Ju,  undisturbed.  "  Have 
we  any  business  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Challis's  private  affairs?" 

"  None  at  all,  my  dear !  Jump  in :  you're  keeping  the  horses." 
Her  ladyship  is  in  the  carriage  already,  and  will  have  no  objec- 
tion to  driving  away  from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Challis's  private  affairs. 
It  was  just  like  dear  Mr.  Taylor  to  begin  talking  about  them,  with 
everyone  about. 

But  Judith  has  another  scheme.  She  is  going  to  walk,  thank 
you!  Miss  Caldecott  and  Phoebe  and  Joan  may  do  the  jumping 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  419 

in,  and  the  carriage  may  drop  them  at  the  Rectory.  Oh,  very 
well! — if  Miss  Arkroyd  really  wants  to  walk.  All  settled.  Only 
Joan  puts  in  a  demurrer;  she  means  to  walk  with  papa,  and  he 
will  carry  her  on  his  shoulder.  Joan  is  an  anti-Sabbatarian 
of  an  advanced  school,  and  often  makes  her  father  as  bad  as 
herself. 

The  Rectory  is  not  really  on  the  way  to  the  Hall,  but  Judith's 
short  cut  to  the  latter  is  not  far  out  of  it  for  Joan  and  her  man- 
servant, or  ox,  or  ass — whichever  is  nearest — who  ought  to  be  doing 
no  labour  on  this  day.  So,  as  soon  as  the  Rector  escapes  from  the 
small-talk  of  many  parishioners  on  the  road,  and  turns  into  the 
field  path,  Judith  can  effect  an  end  she  has  in  view.  It  was  none 
of  her  doing,  mind  you! — this  was  the  substance  of  her  exordium 
— it  was  entirely  mamma.  What  she  referred  to,  after  many  min- 
utes in  abeyance,  had  revived  the  moment  the  last  parishioner  died 
away.  But  the  Rector  disallowed  her  line  of  pleading. 

"  Come,  I  say  now,  Judith ! "  He  Christian-names  the  daugh- 
ters of  the  Hall  when  alone  with  them,  having  known  them  as 
children.  "  Draw  it  mild !  You  must  have  told  your  madre  some- 
thing. Of  course  you  did ! " 

"  Yes.  I  was  obliged  to.  But  Mr.  Challis  did  not  mean  me  to. 
It  was  very  difficult  not  to  say  something  about  what  was  in  the 
letter.  ..." 

"From  Mr.  Challis?" 

"  Yes.  Mamma  knows  his  handwriting,  and  asked  me  what  was 
in  it.  It  was  too  long  for  me  to  say — nothing !  So  I  told  her  what 
I  knew  she  must  hear  afterwards,  but  begged  her  to  say  nothing 
about  it." 

"  And  then  she  told  Bess  ? " 

"  I'm  extremely  sorry  to  have  to  turn  and  rend  my  mother — 
especially  coming  from  Church — but  you  see  she  has  her  idiosyn- 
crasies, the  madre.  I  assure  you,  dear  Mr.  Taylor,  she  actually 
went  straight  to  Miss  Caldecott,  and  said  with  the  most  unblushing 
effrontery  that  she  had  promised  not  to  tell  anyone,  but  that  she 
knew  she  might  do  so  safely  to  anyone  so  discreet,  and  then  re- 
peated what  I  had  said  to  her,  with  additions.  She  is  a  trying 
mother  sometimes !  " 

"  And  then  Bess  comes  and  tells  me !  You're  a  nice  lot  of 
confidantes.  ..."  Something  in  Judith's  look  checks  his  joking- 
tone  as  he  glances  round  at  her,  and  he  says,  "  What  ? "  And  then, 
"  Yes — go  on !  "  Then  a  hesitation  leaves  her,  and  she  speaks : 

"  I  will  tell  you  more  than  I  told  mamma,  Mr.  Taylor.  I  wish 
to,  because  I  think  your  advice  would  be  good.  Mr.  Challis  wrote 


420  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

to  me — a  long  letter — we  are  friends,  you  know;  I  have  seen  a 
good  deal  of  him.  ..." 

"  Quite  right !     I  like  Challis,  you  know." 

"  So  do  I ; — though  he  might  smoke  less.  However,  we're  none 
of  us  perfect.  .  .  .  Well! — I'm  sorry  to  say  the  story  is  true. 
He  fell  out  with  Marianne — his  wife  is  Marianne — the  day  after 
he  arrived  at  home,  although  she  had  received  him  cordially 
enough  on  his  arrival.  She  was  at  her  mother's  when  he  arrived, 
but  came  back  to  dinner.  In  the  course  of  the  evening  they  quar- 
relled, but  I  gathered  from  his  letter  that  he  thought  it  would 
blow  over.  Next  morning  they  were  civil  to  one  another,  but 
short  of  reconciliation.  She  went  out  in  the  morning,  and  in  the 
afternoon  he  went  away  to  a  club-dinner.  When  he  came  back, 
quite  late,  he  found  a  note  from  her,  saying  that  she  had  gone 
away  again  to  her  mother's,  and  had  taken  her  children  with  her." 

"  Good  God ! "  The  Rector's  voice  is  a  shocked  undertone. 
"  Was  that  Bob,  and  the  two  little  girls  .  .  .  ?  Oh  yes !— he  told 
me  a  good  deal  of  his  family." 

"  Not  Bob ;  he's  at  school.  The  others  are  her  own  children ;  he 
isn't." 

"  I  never  was  more  shocked  in  my  life.  .  .  .  Yes ! — Joanikin. 
You'd  better  get  down  and  walk  a  bit.  There  we  are,  all  alive  and 
kicking ! "  Joan  is  deposited  on  the  ground,  her  legs  in  evidence. 
"  But  do  tell  me ! — '  took  away  her  children  with  her ' !  She  can't, 
legally." 

"  She  has  done  it  illegally,  I  presume."  Judith  is  very  equable 
over  this  point.  "  She  has  done  it  actually,  anyhow ! " 

"  W hat  an  extraordinary  thing ! "  The  Rector  cannot  get 
over  it. 

"Well! — it's  true!  He  came  back  from  his  club,  poor  man,  to 
find  his  house  empty  and  his  children  gone.  And  no  explanation 
but  the  note.  He  roused  up  the  servants  that  were  left,  a  cook 
named  Steptoe  and  the  housemaid,  who  said  their  mistress  and 
the  nurse  and  children  had  packed  a  few  things  and  gone  away 
in  a  cab  with  a  friend,  about  an  hour  after  he  left." 

"It  seems  almost  incredible — at  first."  He  has  to  walk  on  a 
little  way,  fanning  himself  with  his  bandana  handkerchief,  before 
he  can  settle  down  from  his  amazement,  and  try  for  enlightening 
details.  At  last  he  says:  "And  then  he  wrote  to  you — when? 
Next  day?" 

"He  left  us,  you  remember,  on  Tuesday.  His  letter  is  dated 
Tuesday.  The  Tuesday  after.  Just  a  week." 

"  Would  you  object  to  my  seeing  it  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  421 

"7  should  not.  Why  should  I?  But  I  fancy  he  did  not  wish 
anyone  else  to  see  it.  I  could  tell  you  what  there  was  in  it,  just 
as  well.  And  then,  dear  Mr.  Taylor,  you  will  see  why  he  wrote  at 
such  length  to  me  about  it.  You  must  be  wondering." 

"  I  was." 

"  It  was  simply  this.  .  .  .  By-the-bye,  I  dare  say  you  heard 
how  he  set  me  on  fire — that  night  we  had  the  dance?  .  .  .  No? 
.  .  .  Well,  it  was  all  connected  with  that.  You  know  this 
Marianne  of  his  would  keep  on  refusing  to  come  and  see  us,  and  I 
asked  him  to  show  me  her  letter  with  a  message  to  me  in  it.  We 
were  out  in  our  little  Tophet  garden,  and  it  was  too  dark  to  read 
it.  I  thought  one  could  read  by  moonlight,  or  I  wouldn't  have 
asked  for  it.  Mr.  Challis  lighted  a  vesta  for  me  to  read  by,  and  set 
me  on  fire  .  .  .  well — yes — I  was  just  a  little  burned,  on  this 
shoulder.  The  worst  of  it  was,  her  letter  caught  fire,  and  was 
burned  to  a  cinder." 

"  But  what  harm  did  that  do  ?     She  didn't  want  it  back." 

"  No,  she  didn't.  But  there  were  two  or  three  words  on  the  back 
he  hadn't  read,  and  I  couldn't  tell  him  what  they  were.  It  seems 
she  was  surprised  at  his  making  no  reference  to  them;  and  since 
he  told  me  in  his  letter  what  he  surmises  they  were,  I  can't  say  I 
wonder.  7  should  have  been." 

"What  were  they?  Or  what  does  he  suppose  them  to  have 
been?" 

"  He  might  not  like  me  to  say,  because  she  can  never  have 
meant  them  to  be  seen.  It  doesn't  matter  what  they  were.  ..." 

"  Certainly,  certainly !     I  quite  understand." 

"  If  he  had  known  of  them,  he  would  have  refused  to  show  me 
the  letter.  As  it  turned  out,  it  was  most  unfortunate.  Because 
he  said  nothing  except  that  he  had  given  me  her  message  to 
read.  ..."  Judith  faltered — was  coming  to  the  difficult  part. 

"  '  Message  to  read,' "  said  the  Rector  connectively.    "  Yes  ?  " 

"  Had  given  me  her  message  to  read,  and  had  said  nothing 
about  when  or  where  or  how.  And  then  the  poor  man  had  to  ac- 
count for  the  burning  of  the  letter  before  he  saw  these  words  on 
the  back  ...  oh  yes! — of  course,  one  ought  always  to  tell  the 
whole  truth  in  a  fix;  I  know  that.  But  she  had  only  his  word  for 
it  that  he  had  read  the  letter  before  and  overlooked  the  postscript. 
Of  course,  what  she  thought  was  that  her  good  gentleman  was 
allowing  a  strange  young  lady — who  isn't  very  popular  with  her — 
to  open  her  confidential  letters,  and  let  him  read  them  over  her 
shoulder.  Now  do  you  appreciate  the  position,  Rector?"  Prob- 
ably this  young  lady  was  very  glad  that  this  way  of  accounting  for 


422  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Mrs.  Challis's  resentment  franked  her  of  referring  to  the  possible 
effect  on  a  jealous  wife's  imagination  of  the  loneliness  of  Tophet 
and  the  moonlight,  both  of  which  were  sine  qua  non  to  a  true  ac- 
count of  the  conflagration.  Surmises  about  Challis's  passionate 
outburst  were  not  to  be  encouraged  by  reference  to  any  of  the  sur- 
roundings that  provoked  them.  Let  them  be  ignored,  "  sequin 
net " — which  is  not  expensive,  but  deadly  in  the  moonlight — and  all ! 

So  unsuspicious  was  Athelstan  Taylor  of  the  inner  soul  of  a 
thorough-paced  flirt  that  he  thought  he  might  indulge  in  a  little 
subcutaneous  paternal  amusement,  as  of  wider  experience,  at  this 
young  lady's  seeming  innocence  of  the  constructions  Mrs.  Challis 
might  attach  to  details  of  the  story  told  in  full.  He  nodded  assent 
to  his  own  insight.  Oh  yes! — he  appreciated  the  position  thor- 
oughly; Judith  might  be  sure  of  that! — and  points  below  the  sur- 
face as  well.  But  these  belonged  to  a  part  of  the  drama  altogether 
of  minor  importance,  seeing  how  foregone  a  conclusion  it  was 
that  no  such  thing  as  flirtation  between  a  daughter  of  the  Hall 
and  a  stray  scribbler  was  possible.  The  fact  that  Challis  had 
quarrelled  with  his  wife  was  on  another  footing  altogether.  May 
there  not  have  been  some  other  cause  ? 

"  Challis  puts  his  wife's  resentment  down  entirely  to  this  matter 
of  the  opening  of  the  letter  ? "  The  Rector's  question  comes  after 
cogitation. 

"  Ye-es ! — entirely,  this  time." 

"  H'm ! — have  there  been  other  times  ? " 

"  He  does  not  say  so.  That  is  not  quite  what  I  meant.  I  should 
have  said  that  she  seems  to  have  accused  him  of  untruthfulness  be- 
fore, or  at  least  hinted  at  it.  I  don't  gather  that  there  has  ever 
been  a  rupture  between  them.  Don't  let's  walk  fast,  or  we  shall  be 
back  before  I've  told  you  what  I  am  in  it — I  mean,  what  Mr.  Chal- 
lis wants  me  to  do." 

"  I  can  come  a  little  way  on  with  you  .  .  .  why,  of  course,  he 
wants  you  to  write  to  his  wife  and  confirm  his  version  of  this 
picturesque  event.  That's  it,  isn't  it  ? " 

" That's  it.    But  what  use  will  it  be? " 

Now  for  all  Athelstan  Taylor's  superior  insight  into  the  world 
and  its  ways,  it  had  not  so  far  presented  itself  to  him  that  a  let- 
ter from  Miss  Arkroyd  to  Mrs.  Challis  on  this  subject  might  be 
like  a  red  rag  to  a  bull.  It  crossed  his  mind  now,  and  kept  him 
silent  until  Judith  repeated:  "What  use  will  it  be?"  Then  he 
replied  uneasily :  "  Do  you  know  ? — I  don't  feel  the  ground  firm  un- 
der my  feet.  I  shouldn't  like  to  advise  off-hand.  What  does  your 
mother  think?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  423 

"  Oh,  I  haven't  talked  to  mamma,  beyond  what  I  told  you.  You 
see — she's  dear,  of  course;  but  she's  a  sieve.  And  these  are  Mr. 
Challis's  affairs,  not  mine  .  .  .  oh  no ! — I  know  he  wouldn't  mind 
my  talking  to  you  about  them." 

"  How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  know!    He  would  like  me  to  talk  to  you,  I'm  certain." 

"  Would  you  mind  talking  to  Bess  about  it  ?  She's  very  sensi- 
ble." 

"I  don't  think  Mr.  Challis  would  like  it.  I  am  sure  he  would 
not  mind  you." 

The  Rector  admitted  this  was  possible,  in  his  inner  conscience. 
But  he  would  make  another  suggestion :  "  Why  not  ask  Addie  what 
she  thinks?  She's  coming  to-morrow,  on  a  visit  to  Lizarann." 

"How  is  the  little  girl?" 

"Getting  on  like  a  house  on  fire.  But  you  will  ask  Addie? 
You  needn't  answer  his  letter  yet,  you  know.  At  least,  you  needn't 
write  to  Mrs.  Challis." 

"  Miss  Fossett  ?  Isn't  she,  though — isn't  she  somehow  some  sort 
of  connection  of  Mrs.  Challis?" 

"Is  she?" 

"  Or  isn't  it  ?  .  .  .  Oh,  I  know — it  was  a  cousin  of  hers  I  met 
at  the  play.  Mr.  Challis  hates  her — the  cousin.  7  didn't  dislike  her." 

"  She  might  know  something.  ..." 

"  I  don't  think  Miss  Fossett  would  see  much  of  this — Mrs. 
Partridge,  I  think  the  name  was.  But  Mrs.  Partridge  and  Mari- 
anne are  bosom-friends.  So  it  might  be  worth  ..."  She  in- 
terrupted herself.  "  Only  isn't  Miss  Fossett  .  .  .  ? " 

"Isn't  she  what?" 

"  Well,  then,  doesn't  she  feel  very  strongly  on  the  Deceased 
Wife's  Sister  question  ?  " 

"  What  would  that  have  to  do  with  it  ? " 

"  You  know  he  married  his  deceased  wife's  sister  ?  " 

"  Eh  ? "  said  the  Rector.  "  So  he  did."  And  then,  thoughtfully : 
"  I  see — I  see — I  think  I  see." 

"See  what?" 

"The  reason  why  she  took  her  children  away.  She  thinks  they 
are  hers  legally — thinks  she  has  a  right  to  them." 

Judith  evidently  did  not  see  the  point  involved,  and  the  Rector 
had  to  explain  that  the  children  of  an  unmarried  woman  belong 
legally  to  their  mother,  and  that  probably  Marianne,  not  being 
Challis's  wife  according  to  the  law  of  the  land,  had  imagined  that 
her  right  to  possession  of  them  could  be  maintained  in  a  law- 
court. 


424  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  But  surely — it  could !  "  said  Judith. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  young  lady !  " — was  the  answer — "  little  you  know 
the  amazing  resources  of  legislation  for  deciding  that  the  weaker 
party  is  in  the  wrong !  " 

But  Judith  did  not  want  the  conversation  to  become  a  review 
of  the  iniquities  of  Law,  a  subject  on  which  she  knew  Athelstan 
Taylor  was  given  to  being  in  revolt  against  constituted  authority. 
So  she  brought  him  back  to  the  real  issue  before  the  house. 

"You  haven't  told  me  what  you  think  I  ought  to  write,  Mr. 
Taylor.  Please  don't  send  me  away  to  ask  somebody  else! — that's 
such  very  cold  comfort.  Give  me  real  advice.  What  can  I  say  ? " 

It  took  a  little  time  to  decide,  but  was  clear  when  it  came. 
"  The  question,  I  take  it,  isn't  whether  the  letter  will  do  any  good. 
I  tell  you  honestly,  I  don't  think  it  will.  But  Challis  asks  you  to 
write,  and  that  settles  the  matter.  Well! — say  you  write  at  his 
request,  and  that  he  asks  you  to  write  exactly  what  happened.  Do 
it  as  literally  as  possible." 

"  Say  anything  about  how  grieved  I  am — painful  circumstances 
— hope  to  hear  misunderstanding  completely  removed — anything 
of  that  sort  ?  " 

"  Oh  no ! — no,  on  the  whole,  certainly  not !  Better  keep  off  that 
as  much  as  possible !  " 

"  Won't  it  be  rather  like  .  .  .  snuffing  poor  Mrs.  Challis  out,  if 
I  don't  end  up  somehow  2 " 

"  Hm — well !  Suppose  we  go  so  far  as  to  hope  this  will  help  to 
remove  ...  to  remove  .  .  .  what  seems  a  perfectly  groundless 
misunderstanding.  Stop  it  at  that.  Quite  enough!  And  I  say, 
Judith,  look  here!  In  writing  to  Mrs.  Challis,  don't  you  go  and 
show  that  you've  heard  particulars  of  the  row.  Stick  to  the  ex- 
planation of  the  letter-business.  Don't  on  any  account  show  you 
know  she  has  left  her  home,  or  that  he  has  told  about  it." 

"Won't  that  be  what  Mr.  Tomes  calls  suppressio  ueri?" 

"  Tut — tut !  If  it  is,  not  sending  the  letter  at  all  will  be 
suppressio  of  still  more  veri.  You  stick  to  what  Challis  asks  for, 
and  let  him  be  responsible.  Married  couples,  when  they  quarrel, 
are  kittle  cattle  to  shoe  behind.  Now  we  must  say  good-bye,  or 
one  of  us  will  be  late  for  lunch." 

They  had  overshot  the  point  at  which  the  path  diverged  to  the 
Kectory,  and  it  was  time  to  hark  back.  But  before  Judith  was 
out  of  hearing  the  Rector  called  after  her. 

"  Tell  poor  Challis  I'm  writing  to  him.  I  shall  go  and  see  him 
when  I  get  up  to  town — some  time  next  week.  Good-bye !  " 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

CHALLIS'S  INSIPID  RETURN  HOME.  WHAT  HAD  IT  ALL  BEEN,  THIS  DREAM  ? 
OLD  LINKS  WITH  BYGONES.  HOW  CONFESS,  AND  TO  WHAT?  OF  A 
FIRE  GOD  GAVE  FOR  OTHER  ENDS 

MR.  CHALLIS  gave  Lord  Felixthorpe's  chauffeur  half-a-sovereign 
when  he  was  landed  at  the  Station.  This  was  because  he  stood  in 
such  awe  of  that  great  man  that  he  doubted  if  so  haughty  a  soul 
would  brook  a  tip  at  all.  However,  it  not  only  brooked  it,  but 
changed  it  immediately  for  nine  shillings  in  silver  and  eight- 
pence  in  coppers  and  a  glass  of  bitters  at  the  Barleymow,  opposite 
the  Station.  So  Challis  felt  easy,  and  wondered  to  himself  that 
so  small  a  matter  should  disquiet  him,  with  all  his  great  per- 
plexities on  hand.  How  on  earth  did  Napoleon  Bonaparte  con- 
trive to  exist? 

However,  all  the  perplexities  came  back  in  force  as  soon  as  he 
was  off;  indeed,  he  was  almost  sorry  no  small  distraction  occurred 
during  his  flight  home.  For  he  was  alone  nearly  all  the  way  to 
Euston ;  the  many  who  nearly  entered  his  carriage  seeming  to  con- 
demn him  on  inspection,  and  choosing  every  other  carriage  on  its 
merits.  The  porter  who  put  his  valise  on  a  cab  at  the  terminus 
seemed  callous  and  preoccupied;  and  the  driver,  when  told  to  go  to 
the  nearest  Metropolitan  Station,  struck  him  as  too  unsym- 
pathetic when  he  said :  "  Which  will  you  have — King's  Cross  or 
Gower  Street?  It  don't  make  no  difference  to  me"  not  without 
some  imputation  of  weakness  of  character.  Also,  this  cabman  ap- 
peared to  form  a  lower  opinion  of  his  fare  when  the  latter  chose 
Gower  Street  than  he  would  have  had  he  chosen  King's  Cross. 

By  the  time  Challis  had  described  a  large  segment  of  the  Inner 
Circle,  and  had  waited  a  quarter  of  an  hour  at  Gloucester  Road  for 
a  Wimbledon  train,  he  had  resolved  that  nothing  would  ever  in- 
duce him  to  try  that  route  again.  Then  a  distasteful  thought 
struck  him: — should  he  ever  make  the  same  journey  again? 
"  Much  better  not,"  said  he  to  himself ;  and  kept  on  repeating  it  to 
himself  till  he  had  found  his  seat  in  the  Wimbledon  train,  the 
gear  of  which  caught  the  phrase,  and  seemed  to  repeat  it  to  itself 
all  the  way  to  East  Putney. 

425 


426 

He  had  wired  to  Marianne:  "Am  coming  home  on  business 
may  come  to  lunch  but  don't  wait  Titus."  The  "may  come  to 
lunch "  struck  him  as  making  this  "  business "  seem  plausible, 
without  definite  disingenuousness.  He  wanted  to  account  for  him- 
self, and  to  make  his  sudden  return  a  very  matter-of-course  occur- 
rence. One  thing  was  odd  about  it — and  it  was  odder  still  that  it 
never  struck  him  as  odd — that  he  should  be  so  solicitous  about  not 
giving  his  wife  an  unnecessary  start.  He  was  just  what  he  had 
always  been  in  respect  of  his  constant  consideration  of  Marianne's 
comfort  in  small  matters,  and  had  never  admitted  to  himself  that 
his  affection  for  her  had  varied  as  a  necessary  result  of  his  in- 
fatuation for  Judith.  Had  it  done  so,  of  necessity?  It  may  not 
have — or  it  may.  Psychological  problems  need  not  occupy  a  nar- 
rative of  facts.  This  is  one  that  might  easily  land  us  in  an  at- 
tempt to  formulate  an  exact  Definition  of  Love.  Better  beware 
in  time!  Leave  the  question  in  a  condition  of  Metaphysical 
Equilibrium. 

How  Challis  would  have  welcomed,  just  at  this  turning-point  of 
his  relations  with  Marianne — scouting  as  he  did  the  idea  of  a 
rupture,  so  far — a  thorough  heart-whole  accolade  at  the  front  gar- 
den-gate of  the  Hermitage!  What  an  all-important  factor  in  the 
moulding  of  the  days  to  come  would  have  been  an  unqualified,  un- 
mitigated, unreserved  embrace — even  before  the  cabman!  Such  a 
one  as  Penelope  would  have  given  Ulysses,  if  he  had  come  back 
rcognizable :  a  greeting  to  send  the  memories  of  all  Calypsoes  flying 
like  chaff  before  the  wind !  Yes — even  the  appearance  of  Penel- 
ope on  the  threshold,  revealing  that  Ulysses  was  just  in  time  for 
lunch,  only  he  must  make  haste,  as  it  had  been  kept  back  to  the 
very  last  minute,  and  he  must  keep  all  his  news  till  afterwards. 
Any  little  thing  of  this  sort — a  note,  spelt  anyhow — a  scribble  on 
the  slate  in  the  hall,  where  you  can  write  messages  if  there's  a 
pencil — the  slightest  tradition  of  a  consciousness  of  tea-to-come  on 
the  part  of  the  departed,  when  departing — even  a  caution  that 
you  are  not  to  spill,  because  it's  a  clean  tablecloth — anything, 
in  fact,  rather  than  the  dull,  neglected,  flat  reality  of  Challis's  re- 
turn! 

Remembering  how  his  last  arrival  at  home  had  fallen  through, 
he  had  organized  a  surprise  in  his  own  mind.  He  had  so  light  a 
valise  this  time — one  carries  less  wardrobe  in  hot  weather — that 
it  would  be  no  encumbrance.  He  would  discharge  his  cab,  and  let 
himself  in  with  his  latchkey. 

The  cabman's  expression  was  one  of  dissatisfaction  with  his 
career,  but  acquiescence  in  fifty-per-cent  beyond  the  tariff.  He 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  427 

said  it  was  coming  on  a  drizzle,  and  drove  away.  Then  Challis 
had  to  give  up  the  surprise.  For  the  garden-gate  was  shut  to  and 
locked — "  because  of  the  boys,"  no  doubt — and  he  had  to  ring. 
He  kept  his  finger  on  the  electric  bell,  to  show  that  his  mind  was 
made  up  as  to  coming  in;  whereupon  Harmood  appeared  bearing 
a  key.  Challis  did  not  complain  that  she  had  not  kissed  him,  but 
he  did  think  she  might  have  been  warmer. 

"Mrs.  Challis  never  said,  sir,"  was  her  brief  testimony  in  re- 
ply to  "  Where  was  your  mistress  going  ? "  The  uncompromising 
roughness  of  "  your  mistress  "  may  have  widened  the  gulf  between 
them.  A  suggestion  that  perhaps  Mrs.  Steptoe  knew  was  met  by 
the  concession,  "  I  could  ask  Mrs.  Steptoe."  Delay  then  resulted, 
as  Mrs.  Steptoe,  though  absolutely  in  ignorance,  wished  to  pro- 
duce a  sort  of  meretricious  effect  of  giving  information,  and  had 
to  make  talk  while  she  thought  out  spurious  data. 

"  No,  sir,  I  couldn't  say  Mrs.  Challis  ever  said  a  word  to  me, 
not  this  morning.  Not  if  you  was  to  ask.  But  yesterday  morning 
she  did  say,  'ash  what  there  was  of  the  chicken,  and  stew  the 
scrag-end  of  the  neck  for  the  kitchen-dinner  to-day.  ..." 

"Well! — and  did  she  say  where  she  was  going?  That's  the 
point." 

"  I  was  coming  to  that,  sir ! "  Mrs.  Steptoe  was  reproachful. 
"  The  scrag-end  of  the  neck  for  the  kitchen-dinner  to-day,  because 
ehe  might  be  going  to  Tulse  Hill.  And  the  young  ladies  would 
certainly  be  going  to  Mrs.  Eldridge's  all  day.  And  this  morning 
she  says  to  me  to  have  a  piece  of  rump-steak  in  the  house  in 
case." 

"  In  case  I  came."  But  Mrs.  Steptoe  had  intended  a  complete 
sentence.  Challis  concluded :  "  That's  where  she's  gone,  I  expect ! 
And  the  children  are  away?" 

"The  young  ladies,  sir."  Thus  Harmood,  the  stickler  for  the 
proprieties.  To  whom  Challis  says,  "Very  well! — Get  me  some 
lunch — steak — anything!"  and  goes  to  his  room  to  wash,  leaving 
Mrs.  Steptoe  recapitulating. 

Was  ever  a  blanker  home-coming?  Challis  began  to  suspect  he 
would  certainly  make  hay  of  his  life,  unless  some  deus  ex  machina 
came  into  it.  Was  he  a  dignus  vindice  nodus?  He  put  the  ques- 
tion aside  to  read  accumulated  letters,  kept  back  by  request.  Then 
lunch  was  on  table,  and  life  seemed  suddenly  as  usuaL  But  no 
Marianne,  so  far! 

The  drizzle  "  it "  had  "  come  on  "  made  a  dreary  outlook  from 
the  house,  and  a  sense  of  the  absence  of  the  children  a  conscious 


428  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

cause  of  dreariness  within.  No  consolation  could  be  found  in  the 
distant  voices  of  the  two  servants  at  loggerheads  in  the  basement. 
"Probably  one  specific  loggerhead,"  thought  Challis,  as  he  gave 
real  thought  and  care  to  the  filling  of  a  pipe  he  meant  to  enjoy. 
Because  a  certain  incisive  repetition,  which  seemed  to  relate  to 
the  same  theme,  conveyed  the  idea  of  diametrically  opposed  opin- 
ions, intemperately  advocated  by  street-door  knocks.  A  lull  would 
come  when  Harmood  brought  him  a  cup  of  coffee — fresh-made,  he 
hoped — and  he  would  then  hint  broadly  that  the  discussion  was 
needlessly  audible.  "Keep  the  kitchen-door  shut"  is  the  usual 
formula. 

The  coffee  came.  It  was  ower  good  for  banning  and  ower  bad 
for  blessing,  like  Rob  Roy;  only  certainly  not  so  strong.  So 
thought  Challis  to  himself — all  such  thoughts  are  his,  not  the 
story's — as  he  submitted  to  it.  But  he  found  a  satisfaction  for  the 
ban  he  had  withheld,  in  an  increased  acerbity  of  manner  in  his 
allusion  to  the  kitchen-door.  He  called  it  out  to  Harmood  as  she 
departed,  having  sipped  the  coffee  in  the  interim.  "  Yes,  sir,"  said 
Harmood,  speaking  as  though  butter  would  not  melt  in  her 
mouth. 

However,  the  kitchen-door  closed,  and  the  discussion  went  on 
as  though  both  the  knockers'  families  had  had  a  baby.  It  would 
not  interfere  with  the  pipe. 

What  was  all  this  that  had  happened  ?  He  found  himself  asking 
space  this,  as  he  watched  the  smoke  curling  away,  and  changing 
to  the  smell  he  meant  to  let  out  of  the  window  before  Marianne 
came  back.  Now  that  he  was  here  again,  in  his  old  surroundings, 
he  could  live  back  into  them,  and  think  of  that  intoxication  of  last 
night — only  last  night! — as  nothing  but  a  strange,  bewitching 
dream.  Never  was  man  more  susceptible  to  surroundings  than 
Challis.  Turn  where  he  might,  some  trifle  or  other  brought  back 
his  old  days  to  him. 

There,  upon  the  chimney-piece,  in  defiance  of  modern  taste, 
were  certain  treasures  that  had  never  found  a  place  on  a  dust- 
heap  because  of  their  various  associations  with  "  poor  Kate."  The 
parian  candlesticks  at  either  end — religiously  mended  whenever 
chipped,  and  one  of  them  obliged  to  submit  to  a  rivet — did  he  and 
Kate  not  buy  them  in  Oxford  Street,  and  were  they  not  therefore 
precious?  The  Swiss  haymakers,  carved  in  wood,  that  were  an 
early  present  of  Marianne's  to  her  sister,  were  they  not — although, 
of  course,  they  were  not  high  art,  and  you  might  sneer  at  them — 
things  Kate  had  valued,  and  on  that  account  never  to  be  dis- 
carded or  forgotten  ?  The  ingenious  ship  under  a  glass  cover,  with 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  429 

chenille  round  its  base,  whose  hull  was  muscle-shells,  and  whose 
rigging  spun  glass,  was  it  not  a  precious  inheritance  of  past  ages, 
treasured  with  curses,  because  every  time  it  was  moved  it  tumbled 
over,  and  had  to  be  taken  from  its  shelter  and  made  the  subject  of 
unskilful  experiments  with  sealing-wax  and  gum-arabic?  Each 
had  its  tale  of  a  former  time.  And  everything  that  said  a  word 
about  Kate  added  a  postscript  about  her  sister. 

Was  it  not  as  well  that  last  night's  folly  or  delirium  should 
rank  as  a  dream? — was  it  not  best?  If  only  Destiny  could  have 
become  a  visible  Rhadamanthus  and  driven  the  nail  home,  say- 
ing, "  Now  that's  settled,  Mr.  Challis,  and  you  are  not  to  see  Miss 
Arkroyd  of  Royd  again,"  and  he  could  have  believed  all  his  ex- 
periences of  the  last  eight  months  hallucinations!  But  he  could 
not  do  so  without  a  warranty,  and  a  strong  one.  He  happened  to 
know  that  Royd  Hall  was  still  there,  in  Rankshire;  and  that  a 
week-end  ticket  was  sixteen  and  sixpence.  Let  him  try  to  make 
a  dream  of  that,  with  Bradshaw  ready  to  rise  in  evidence  and  de- 
nounce him!  He  could  not  but  fail,  with  all  the  facts  against 
him,  in  an  attempt  to  quench  his  memories;  but  the  more  dream- 
like and  unreal  they  seemed  to  him,  the  less  guilty  he  felt  of 
duplicity  towards  Marianne.  Other  men  might  not  have  felt  so; 
but  this  is  his  story,  and  we  must  take  him  as  we  find  him. 

Would  any  other  man  in  like  case  have  fashioned,  as  he  did,  the 
rough-hewn  incidents  of  a  scene  in  which  he  should  make  a  clean 
breast  of  the  whole  tormenting  dream  to  his  wife,  get  absolution, 
and  be  once  more  his  natural  self,  with  no  reserves?  How 
on  earth  should  he  set  about  it?  that  was  the  thought  that  started 
it.  Suppose  he  succeeded  in  saying,  "  Polly  Anne,  I'm  a  bad, 
wicked  man,  and  I've  been  making  love  to  Judith  Arkroyd,  and 
forgetting  my  duty  to  the  wife  of  my  bosom  and  her  kids,"  would 
Marianne  know  what  would  be  a  correct  attitude  for  an  injured 
matron  under  her  circumstances?  Would  she  be  able  to  say,  per- 
jured and  forsworn  and  betrayer,  and  hence! — ere  she  did  some 
correct  thing  or  other?  Not  she!  But  suppose  instead  she  were 
to  say,  "Just  one  minute,  till  I've  done  with  Harmood,  and  I 
shall  be  able  to  listen  to  you.  .  .  .  Now,  what  is  it  ? "  what  on 
earth  would  he  do  then  with  the  position?  Say  it  all  over  again, 
or  try  a  variation,  "  You  see  before  you  a  guilty  et  cetera,"  or 
something  of  that  sort?  No,  no! — that  would  never  do.  Why, 
part  of  the  awkwardness  of  the  position  was  that  the  word  guilty 
would  overweight  the  confession  so  terribly.  None  of  the  sub- 
stantial conditions  of  broken  marriage-vows  had  been  complied 
with,  and  it  really  would  be  difficult  to  know  exactly  what  to  con- 


430  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

fess  to.  How  could  he  know  that  Charlotte  Eldridge — for,  dram- 
atist that  he  was,  he  knew  that  lady  down  to  the  ground! — would 
not  have  dismissed  the  case  with,  "  You  see,  my  dear,  there  really 
hadn't  been  anything !  " 

And  all  the  while  the  worst  of  it  was  that,  according  to  his  own 
canon  of  morals,  there  had  been  everything.  He  had  profaned  the 
temple  of  Love,  soiled  the  marble  floor,  torn  some  chaplet  from 
the  altar;  done  something,  no  matter  what,  that  was  making  him 
a  secret-keeper  from  his  wife;  that  would  make  him  flinch  from 
her  gaze.  Were  other  men  all  like  that  ?  No,  certainly  not !  But 
then,  they  were  not  milksops,  but  Men  of  the  World.  Also,  they 
worshipped  at  another  temple,  down  the  road,  those  merry  satyrs; 
a  temple  where  Pan  and  Silenus  had  altars. 

No  doubt  this  analysis  of  his  own  case,  that  Challis  makes  aa 
he  gets  on  with  that  pipe — near  its  end  now — and  waits  to  hear 
his  wife's  cab  at  the  gate,  would  have  clashed  a  good  deal  with  his 
seeming  reckless  speech  among  men ;  speech  he  was  apt  to  get  him- 
self a  very  bad  name  by,  among  precisians  I  But  he  was  made  up 
of  oddities  and  paradoxes.  Is  any  light  thrown  on  him  by  what 
he  is  reported  to  have  once  said :  "  I  can't  see  that  it  can  matter 
how  many  wives — or  whatever  you  like  to  call  them — a  man  has,  if 
he  doesn't  care  twopence  about  any  of  them,  and  they  all  know  it "  ? 
The  funny  part  of  this  creed  of  Challis's  about  marriage  and  his 
fellow-men  was  that  it  caused  them  to  ascribe  to  him  precisely  the 
same  morals  that  he  had  ascribed  to  them;  and  that  each  one  of 
them,  whenever  he  chanced  to  speak  of  it  in  confidence  to  any- 
one he  was  not  on  his  guard  against,  always  appeared  to  disclaim 
attendance  at  the  temple  down  the  road  for  himself,  personally; 
and,  in  fact,  to  suggest  that  he,  exceptionally,  had  common  de- 
cency in  a  corner  somewhere. 

No  man  will  ever  know — one  may  say  that  much  safely — how  far 
any  other  man  is  like  himself.  He  is  pretty  sure  to  invent  a  curi- 
ous monster  for  his  fellow-man  to  be,  based  on  all  his  own  worst 
propensities ;  but  utterly  ignoring  that  mysterious  impulse  to  fight 
against  them  which  he  has  the  egotism  to  call  his  better  self.  He 
credits  himself,  personally,  with  an  inherent  dislike  of  evil,  and 
conceives  that  his  fellow-man  is  kept  in  check  by  the  Decalogue. 
He  ascribes  Original  Sin  to  the  race,  and  credits  himself  secretly 
with  a  monopoly  of  Original  Virtue. 

But  it  is  unfair  to  go  on  moralizing  in  this  way,  merely  because 
Marianne  does  not  come  back.  The  justification  is  that  Challis 
spent  such  a  long  time  in  useless  self -torment  over  his  position; 
he  all  the  while  believing  quite  sincerely  that  real  men  of  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  431 

world — say,  broadly  speaking,  Mr.  Brown  and  Lord  Smith — prac- 
tised double-dealers  that  they  were  in  all  that  relates  to  woman- 
kind, would  have  dismissed  the  whole  matter  with  an  experienced 
smile.  In  the  course  of  an  hour,  however,  he  endeavored  to  imi- 
tate the  spirited  demeanour  of  Mr.  Brown  and  Lord  Smith,  and 
went  away  to  his  room  to  write. 

He  had  to  acknowledge  that  he  could  not  fix  his  attention  as 
Mr.  Brown  and  Lord  Smith  would  have  done;  but  he  made  a  fair 
show  of  writing,  too — felt  he  had  got  to  work  again!  Marianne 
would  be  back  to  tea;  he  was  glad  of  that.  He  was  distinctly 
not  at  all  sorry  to  find  he  was  glad  of  that.  But  he  was  a  little 
annoyed  that  it  had  occurred  to  him  to  make  the  discovery — that 
he  had  not  left  the  question  dormant. 

The  noise  in  the  kitchen  below  wa's  almost  inaudible  in  Challis's 
room,  but  a  sense  hung  about  of  the  remains  of  an  engagement 
elsewhere.  Challis  was  conscious  that  a  dropping  fire  stopped 
when  he  rang  the  bell  at  four-thirty,  to  tell  Harmood  not  to  get 
the  tea  till  her  mistress  came  back.  Harmood  consented,  provided 
that  the  obnoxious  expression  was  withdrawn.  Only  she  did  not 
put  it  that  way.  What  she  said  was,  "  To  wait  for  Mrs.  Challis, 
sir  ? "  Had  Challis  answered,  "  Yes,  your  mistress !  "  she  might 
have  shown  a  proper  spirit.  But  as  he  said,  with  discretion,  "  Ex- 
actly 1 "  Miss  Harmood  consented  to  postpone  tea.  His  phrase 
seemed  to  admit  inexactness  in  the  epithet  "  mistress." 

But  the  young  lady  was  going  to  make  no  suggestions.  If  Mr. 
Challis  liked  to  go  without  his  tea,  let  him !  She  was  not  going  to 
attempt  to  influence  anybody.  The  hours  passed,  and  ink  that 
might  have  perished  on  a  penwiper  became  a  permanent  record 
of  thoughts  which  their  writer  always  doubted  the  value  of  the 
moment  after  writing  them.  But  perhaps  they  were  immortal? 
No  one  would  ever  know  till  the  very  end  of  Eternity. 

Was  that  actually  six  o'clock?  Well — she  wouldn't  come  now 
till  dinner !  He  considered  a  short  walk  before  she  turned  up ;  but 
the  drizzle  was  one  of  those  all-pervading  drizzles  that  despise  um- 
brellas, and  do  the  garden  a  world  of  good.  One  never  goes  out 
for  a  walk  in  those  drizzles.  He  would  have  another  pipe,  and 
think  it  over — perhaps  write  a  little  more  presently. 

He  would  have  done  more  wisely  to  write  the  little  more  at  once 
— to  remain  hard  and  fast  at  his  writing-table.  For  he  had  not 
been  long  over  the  second  pipe  when  the  summer  sun,  now  on  it8 
way  to  roost,  got  a  chance  to  peep  through  a  cloud-rift,  and 
straightway  Wimbledon  was  aware  it  was  the  heart  of  a  rainbow 
it  could  not  see,  however  palpable  it  might  be  at  Esher.  Now,  it 


432  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

chanced  that  just  at  the  moment  when  the  sudden  prismatic  glow 
flooded  that  vulgar,  incorrigible  drizzle,  and  clothed  it  in  an  un- 
deserved radiance,  Chain's  was  watching  the  crystal  beads  that 
chased  each  other  in  a  line  along  the  under-edge  of  a  sloping  gut- 
ter above  his  window.  He  was  wondering  why  they  held  on  so 
tight — it  was  so  seldom  one  dropped — when  on  a  sudden  they  all 
became  jewels,  each  with  a  little  complete  image  of  the  sun  in  it,  if 
they  would  only  have  stood  still  while  one  looked!  And  these 
jewels  brought  back  a  something  to  his  mind.  He  felt  it  coming 
before  he  could  define  it:  what  was  it  going  to  be?  Why,  of 
course! — the  gleaming  beads  or  scales  or  spangles  on  Judith's 
dress,  last  night  in  the  little  garden  with  the  funny  name — what 

was  it? Tophet. 

And  then  it  all  came  back  with  a  rush.  He  had  contrived,  in 
his  home-surrounding,  to  dodge  and  evade,  as  it  were,  his  memory 
of  his  folly  of  last  night  for  a  moment.  He  had  now  slipped  un- 
awares into  his  past;  and  malicious  recollection  had  brought  back 
this-and-that  that  was  pleasant  in  it,  but  had  closed  the  door 
against  reminders  of  all  that  had  been  tedious  and  distasteful  in 
his  later  married  life.  With  no  Marianne  there  in  the  flesh,  to  call 
attention  to  that  morose  and  jealous  temper  she  had  developed  in 
these  later  years,  he  had  indulged  in  the  luxury  of  forgetting  it; 
and  had  repeopled  the  empty  house  with  a  cheerful  version  of  its 
mistress,  one  that  was  exactly  what  the  Marianne  of  old  ought  to 
have  grown  up  into — not  very  clever,  certainly — not  Madame  de 
Stael,  by  any  means — but  always  good-humoured  and  ready  to 
laugh  at  her  own  blunders,  and  gradually  outgrowing  that  terrible 
vice  of  blood,  that  dire  form  of  Christianity  that  made  it  a  won- 
der to  him  how  his  new  friend,  that  good  parson-chap  at  Royd, 
should  be  tarred  with  the  same  feather.  He  had  got  into  a  back- 
water of  the  stream  of  life,  and  found  a  happy  anchorage  for  a  mo- 
ment; and  here  came  the  torrent  he  had  escaped,  and  caught  him 
up  and  whirled  him  away  with  it,  Heaven  knows  where!  Little 
things  make  the  great  things  of  life,  and  no  sooner  was  that  mis- 
erable gew-gaw  that  was  not  even  an  expensive  article  brought 
across  his  mind  by  those  jewel-drops  flashing  in  the  sun  than  he 
became  again  the  heart-distempered  victim  of  the  image  it  brought 
with  it — Judith  in  all  her  beauty,  at  its  best  in  the  moonlight.  His 
incipient  fit  of  reconciliation  to  his  home  had  only  been  mo- 
mentary, and  the  paroxysm  of  his  disorder  that  upset  it — how 
rightly  he  hnd  spoken  of  it  as  a  fool's  passion! — sent  him  pacing 
to-and-fro  across  the  room,  catching  at  the  empty  air  with  nervous 
fingers,  pressing  them  mercilessly  on  his  eyes,  as  though  he  would 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  433 

crush  out  with  them  the  beautiful  image  of  the  woman  that  be- 
witched him. 

This  sort  of  thing  is  not  so  uncommon  as  you,  perhaps,  think. 
You  have  read  of  it,  of  course — best  told  by  Robert  Browning,  per- 
haps— how  "the  Devil  spends  a  fire  God  gave  for  other  ends." 
That  was  like  to  be  Challis's  case  if  this  went  on. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

A  BAD  RAILWAY  ACCIDENT.  AND,  AFTER  ALL,  MARIANNE  WAS  AT  HOME. 
CHALLIS'S  REPORT  OF  ROYD.  BUT  NO ! — MARIANNE  WOULDN'T  HAVE 
JUDITH  SLURRED  OVER 

JUST  as  the  cloud-rift  closed  and  spoiled  the  rainbow  a  sound 
came  of  a  cab  approaching.  Challis  stopped  in  his  restless  pacing 
to-and-fro,  and  listened.  .  .  .  Yes! — the  cab  was  stopping. 
That  might  be  Polly  Anne?  The  fact  that  his  mind  said  "Polly 
Anne,"  by  preference,  showed  that  his  relief  at  her  arrival — for 
he  was  one  of  those  who  always  fidget  when  folk  are  overdue — out- 
weighed for  the  moment  a  feeling  that  he  would  be  glad  when  he 
had  passed  the  Rubicon  of  looking  her  in  the  face.  He  was  con- 
scious, though,  as  he  ran  downstairs  to  meet  her,  of  a  trace  of  the 
alacrity  one  shows  as  one  enters  the  dentist's  sanctum,  to  convince 
oneself  one  is  really  ready  to  have  one's  molar  out.  But  before  he 
got  to  the  swing-round  of  the  banister  curve  he  knew  it  wasn't 
Marianne  after  all,  this  time! 

Then,  on  the  lower  flight,  he  became  conscious  that  it  was  that 
booby  John  Eldridge;  saying,  as  one  in  indecision:  "No — stawp 
a  bit!  I'll  tell  you  in  a  minute,"  and  then  somehow  contriving — 
as  it  were  to  fill  out  a  pause  for  thought — a  certain  bubbling  or 
wobbling  noise,  made  with  the  end  of  his  tongue  between  his  lips. 
It  was  brief,  for  he  soon  added :  "  Suppose  you  was  to  tell  him  I 
was  here!  I  can't  see  that  any  harm  '11  come  o'  that.  What's 
your  idea  ? " 

But  Harmood's  idea,  if  she  had  one,  remained  concealed  behind 
her  professional  manner ;  which  was  what  the  Sphinx's  might  have 
been,  had  the  latter  taken  a  house-and-parlounnaid's  place.  For, 
perceiving  Challis  on  the  stairs,  she  passed  her  visitor  on  to  him 
without  reply,  merely  saying :  "  Mr.  Eldridge,  if  you  was  at  home, 
sir."  This  formula  left  it  open  to  her  to  cancel  or  ignore  Mr. 
Eldridge  if  her  employer  thought  fit  to  deny  his  own  existence  in 
the  face  of  evidence. 

"  I  am  here,"  said  Challis,  descending.  "  Like  the  Duke's  motto ! 
Marianne  isn't,  but  I'm  expecting  her  every  minute.  Anything 

434 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  435 

up  ? "  This  query  related  to  a  certain  rosy  uneasiness  that  hung 
about  Mr.  Eldridge's  hesitation  of  manner. 

"  Oh  no !  No — nothing !  Only  Lotty  said  you  were  coming 
back  to-day.  Suppose  we  was  to  come  in  here !  "  "  Here "  was 
the  front  sitting-room,  looking  to  the  road.  Hannood  closed  the 
street-door,  and  died  respectfully  away. 

u  By  all  means,"  said  Challis.     "  Out  with  it,  John !  " 

Mr.  Eldridge  struggled  with  obstacles  to  speech,  which  he  en- 
deavoured, by  ostentatious  clearing  of  the  throat,  to  refer  to 
chronic  bronchitis.  At  last  he  got  to  "  Mind  you,  Master  Titus, 
it's  ten  to  one  there's  nothing  in  it !  But  I  thought  it  just  as  well 
to  look  in  and  tell  you."  Challis  waited,  with  an  ugly  misgiving 
growing  on  him,  till  two  words  with  a  shock  in  them  came,  blurted 
out  by  the  speaker,  whom  they  left  perturbed,  mopping  his  brow 
and  polishing  his  nose  with  his  handkerchief.  "Railway  Col- 
lision !  "  said  Mr.  Eldridge.  "  Bad  job !  But  don't  you  run  away 
with  the  idea  that  ..." 

a  That— that  she— Marianne.  ..." 

"  Ah !  Well ! — I  tell  you,  Master  Titus,  I  don't  believe  she  was 
in  the  train." 

"You  know  nothing  about  it!  Why  didn't  you  stay  to  find 
out?"  Challis  finds  natural  irritation  with  this  booby's  method 
an  easement  against  the  new  strain  on  his  powers  of  bearing  anxi- 
eties. One  good  point  about  which  is  that  Judith  and  Royd  Hall 
vanish  with  a  clean  sweep.  Face  to  face  suddenly  with  a  hideous 
possibility,  that  Marianne  may  be  killed  or  maimed  for  life,  he  is 
completely  back  in  his  old  life  again,  and  knows  nothing  outside 
the  tension  of  the  moment.  In  a  very  few  seconds  he  sees  that 
his  informant  does  know  nothing;  having  evidently,  when  he  wit- 
nessed or  heard  of  this  accident,  become  the  slave  of  a  singular 
and  not  uncommon  idea  that  the  sooner  ill  news  is  heard  the  bet- 
ter, and  having  rushed  off  with  his  without  waiting  for  details  or 
confirmation.  Challis  gives  him  up  as  quite  useless  as  an  in- 
formant. "Your  cab's  there?"  he  asks.  And  receiving  an  af- 
firmative, says  with  decision:  "Wait  till  I  get  my  boots  on! " 

Mr.  Eldridge  throws  a  bit  of  good  counsel  after  him  as  he  runs 
upstairs  three  steps  at  a  time.  "Don't  you  get  in  a  stoo,  Master 
Titus!  Easy  does  it."  He  then  retires  into  the  parlour,  and 
fidgets,  variously.  He  drums  on  surfaces  that  offer  themselves, 
feels  about  on  his  razor-farm  for  interesting  incidents,  whistles 
truncated  tunes  that  do  not  last  to  identification-point,  and  fre- 
quently repeats,  "  Nothing  to  go  by — nothing  to  go  by — nothing  to 
go  by ! "  shaking  his  head  and  looking  profound,  till  Challis  comes 


436  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

quickly  downstairs.  He  calls  out  to  Harmood  in  some  remote 
background  that  he  is  going  out,  and  doesn't  know  when  he'll  be 
back. 

The  cabman  is  good  for  information,  and  coherent.  A  petro- 
leum explosion  on  the  train  from  Haydon's  Road.  Just  coming 
into  the  Station,  and  hadn't  slowed  down  enough.  Guard  injured 
— couldn't  apply  the  brake.  Train  ran  beyond  platform,  and  col- 
lided with  truck,  shunting.  What  did  they  want  to  be  shunting 
trucks  for,  with  the  train  just  due?  Anyone  might  have  known 
there  might  be  a  petroleum  explosion,  and  the  guard  not  be  able  to 
apply  the  brake.  Or  anything  else,  for  that  matter!  Anyone 
hurt?  Oh  ah,  yes! — people  enough  hurt,  if  you  came  to  that. 
All  right !  You  two  gents,  if  you  jumped  in,  should  be  at  the  Sta- 
tion in  no  time. 

Did  you  ever  have  the  ill-luck  to  be  the  seeker  after  a  possible 
casualty  in  a  railway  accident?  If  you  have  you  will  be  able  to 
guess  what  Challis  went  through  in  the  hour  that  followed.  For- 
tunately for  him,  the  crucial  moment  of  inspection  of  the  bodies 
of  two  women  unknown,  for  identification,  was  soon  over.  To  a 
certainty,  neither  was  Marianne.  So  also  the  few  cases  too  bad 
for  immediate  removal  were  soon  decided  about — some  without 
visiting  them;  these  having  been  able  to  give  their  names.  And 
if  Marianne  had  been  among  those  who  had  started  for  home, 
whether  injured  or  scot-free,  she  would  have  been  met  on  the  road. 
They  would  have  been  sure  to  see  her,  or  she  them. 

Moreover,  there  were  not  many  people  in  the  train,  and  Mrs. 
Challis  was  well  known  at  the  Station.  She  was  a  constant 
passenger  by  this  line,  going  to  Tulse  Hill  via  Streatham.  The 
officials  at  the  Station  felt  sure  they  would  have  seen  her  had  she 
been  in  the  train.  No  other  train  would  follow  for  some  time 
that  Mrs.  Challis  could  possibly  come  by.  Probably  she  had  missed 
her  train  at  Tulse  Hill.  Good  job  too,  for  her,  said  public 
opinion. 

So  Mrs.  Challis's  husband,  relieved,  but  with  a  swimming  head, 
and  very  uncharitable  feelings  in  his  heart  towards  the  originator 
of  all  this  needless  alarm,  drove  home  beside  that  really  very 
stupid  person;  and  so  far  as  his  own  condition  of  semi-collapse 
permitted  it,  gathered  the  story  of  his  friend's  share  in  the  mat- 
ter, and  what  he  considered  a  justification  of  his  action. 

It  appeared  that  Mr.  Eldridge  had  accompanied  his  wife  to 
Wimbledon  Station,  on  her  way  to  an  evening  appointment  in 
London.  As  she  was  getting  into  the  carriage,  the  train  on  the 
other  line  came  in  from  Haydon's  Lane.  She  said  to  her  husband : 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  437 

"  That's  Marianne's  train ;  she  was  going  to  Tulse  Hill.  You  can 
drive  her  back  in  your  cab.  You'll  find  Titus  at  home.  He  was 
to  be  back  to-day."  Then,  as  her  train  left  the  platform,  he  saw 
a  sudden  blaze  of  fire  from  the  guard's  van  of  the  other  one;  and 
the  collision,  as  already  described,  resulted.  A  cooler  or  stronger 
judgment  than  John  Eldridge's  would  no  doubt  have  exhausted 
every  source  of  information  rather  than  jump  at  the  conclusion 
that  his  friend's  wife  was  necessarily  among  the  injured  because 
he  could  not  find  her  among  the  survivors.  His  reasoning  powers 
were  not  strong  enough  to  stand  by  him  through  the  panic  of  the 
scene  that  ensued,  and  he  could  see  nothing  for  it  but  to  convey 
the  news  of  the  supposed  disaster  to  her  husband. 

Challis  was  inhospitable  enough  not  to  press  him  to  come  in  and 
dine,  and  was  so  annoyed  with  his  folly  that  he  might  not  have 
done  so  even  if  less  desirous  of  a  quiet  evening  with  the  subject 
of  all  this  alarm,  who  would  no  doubt  appear  in  due  course, 
though  the  best  part  of  an  hour  late.  He  felt  secure  that  nobody 
could  be  connected  hypothetically  with  one  mishap,  and  actually 
with  another,  on  the  same  evening!  Impossible!  Mr.  Eldridge 
seemed  not  so  confident ;  for  he  said  at  parting,  "  Good-bye,  Mas- 
ter Titus !  Glad  Marianne  wasn't  killed  by  this  train !  "  and  drove 
off  to  his  own  domicile. 

The  garden-gate  was  not  locked;  this  was  owing  to  Challis's 
return.  For  he  always  insisted  that  the  front-door  should  be 
approachable,  boys  or  no,  when  he  was  in  residence.  He  got  in 
with  his  latch-key,  and  going  straight  to  the  top  of  the  kitchen- 
stairs,  called  out  to  Harmood,  whose  response  came  duly. 

"  Tell  Mrs.  Steptoe  she  must  keep  dinner  back.  Your  mistress 
will  be  late." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir !  " 

"  Tell — Mrs. — Steptoe  she  must  keep — dinner — back !  "  Challis 
endorsed  his  mandate  with  forcible  word-isolations,  and  gave 
fuller  particulars  of  his  reasons  why.  Harmood  responded  rather 
tartly: 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  sir !    Did  you  say  Mrs.  Challis  ? " 

"Yes!" 

"  Mrs.  Challis  is  come  in,  sir.    Been  in  half-an-hour !  " 

"God  bless  me!"  exclaimed  Challis;  and  nearly  added,  "Why 
didn't  you  tell  me  ? " — which  would  have  been  absurd.  But  he 
was  saved  from  this  by  a  voice  from  the  floor  above;  Marianne's, 
unmistakably. 

"  Oh  dear ! — What  arc  you  shouting  down  in  the  kitchen  for  ? 
Why  can't  you  come  up  ? " 


438  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  I'm  coming,  dear !  When  on  earth  did  you  come  in  ? "  His 
salute  was  cordial.  Hers  was  .  .  .  well! — she  might  have  done 
better.  But  then,  you  see,  she  knew  nothing  about  all  this  ex- 
citement that  was  afoot.  And  never  forget  that  Mrs.  Steptoe's 
legend  of  Ramsgate  always  hung  in  her  mind. 

"  I've  been  in  this  past  half -hour.  Why  did  you  go  out  again  ? 
It  makes  things  so  late." 

"  I'll  tell  you  directly.     How  on  earth  did  you  get  here  ? " 

"  How  on  earth  did  I  get  here  ? "  It  is  slowly  dawning  on  her 
that  something  has  happened.  "  I  drove  from  the  Station.  Just 
as  usual!  ...  I  suppose  that's  the  children." 

"  But  how  came  we  not  to  meet  you  ? " 

"Who?" 

"John  Eldridge  and  I — driving  down  to  Wimbledon." 

"  How  can  I  tell  ?  I've  not  been  at  Wimbledon.  I  came  from 
East  Putney,  as  I  told  you,  in  a  cab.  You'd  better  get  ready  for 
dinner." 

"  All  right !     But  how  came  you  to  come  by  East  Putney  ?  " 

Marianne  always  had  an  irritating  way  of  treating  her  husband 
as  though  he  were  inaudible  and  invisible.  No  doubt  she  meant 
no  harm  by  it.  But  husbands  do  feel  secretly  nettled  sometimes 
if  they  are,  as  it  were,  held  in  abeyance  by  a  waved  hand,  to 
await  the  end  of  a  colloquy  they  are  excluded  from.  Challis  felt, 
at  least,  that  he  was  very  good-humoured  not  to  be  nettled. 

"  What  has  made  the  children  so  late?  I  said  no  later  than  six." 
So  spoke  the  lady,  eliciting  revelations  of  delay  caused  by  the 
children  hiding  themselves.  Due  public  censure  of  the  offence 
followed. 

Challis  had  become  himself  again  by  soup-time.  "Well,  Polly 
Anne,"  said  he,  "you've  never  told  me  how  you  came  to  go  by 
East  Putney !  "  The  trifling  excitement  over  the  child  had  such 
a  thoroughly  old-world  flavour  with  it  that  he  was  very  much  at 
home  again,  and  Eoyd  Hall  had  slipped  away  to  dreamland. 

"  Oh,  I  ? "  Marianne  is  not  ill-humoured  now.  But  she  is,  to 
a  certain  extent,  enduring  her  lot.  You  know  how  that's  done? 
**  A  little  bit  of  stopping  came  out  of  my  front  tooth,  and  I  had 
to  go  up  to  Kensington  to  get  it  seen  to.  Of  course,  I  hadn't 
written,  and  Roots  and  Leaver  kept  me  an  hour  and  a  half." 

"What  did  he  ha  veto  do?  .    .    .  painful?  ..." 

"  Oh  no — nothing !  He  put  some  fresh  stopping.  Only  a  few 
minutes!  What  took  you  to  Wimbledon?" 

"  Well — you  see ! — our  excellent  friend  John  Eldridge  came  and 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  439 

told  me  you  were  killed  in  the  accident  at  Wimbledon  Sta- 
tion. ..." 

"  Oh !    Was  there  an  accident  ? " 

"  Yes.  Nobody  we  know  in  it.  But  two  women  killed  and  sev- 
eral injured.  It  was  petroleum."  He  gave  particulars  of  the 
accident,  dwelling  on  the  fact  that  the  wrecked  train  was  the  one 
his  wife  would  have  been  in  if  she  had  not  been  at  the  dentist's. 
"  But  I  was  at  the  dentist's,"  she  said,  with  a  certain  implica- 
tion in  her  voice  of  "  So  I  don't  see  what  you  have  to  complain 
of." 

However,  it  slowly  dawned  upon  her  that  this  was  a  case  for 
recognition  of  the  mercies  of  Providence.  These  were  of  two 
classes;  one  of  which,  known  to  her  as  Divine  Forgiveness 
towards  Sinners,  on  condition  that  they  went  to  church,  was  an 
entirely  different  thing  from  certain  good-natured  impulses  on 
the  part  of  the  Creator  towards  persons  in  difficulties,  prompting 
special  intervention  on  their  behalf  to  save  them  from  the  blunders 
of  Creation  now  that  He  had  set  it  fairly  going,  and  left  it  to 
shift  for  itself.  He  was,  it  appeared,  very  catholic  in  these  im- 
pulses, as  often  as  not  giving  non-churchgoers  the  benefit  of  His 
reserved  rights  of  intervention  in  the  caprices  of  the  material 
universe.  Challis  believed  that  his  wife  used  up  all  the  theolog- 
ical liberality  of  which  she  was  capable  in  ascribing  let-offs  of 
Jews,  Turks,  Heretics,  and  Infidels  to  special  interventions  which 
could  only  postpone  for  a  very  short  time  their  Eternal  Damna- 
tion at  the  hands  of  the  intervening  power. 

However,  he  was  in  no  mood  just  now  for  laughing  at  her;  so 
he  let  it  be  supposed  that  he  acquiesced  in  what  amounted  to  a 
suggestion  that  Providence  had  knocked  out  that  bit  of  stopping 
from  her  front  tooth  in  order  to  prevent  her  coming  by  that  train. 
He  kept  absolute  silence  through  her  acknowledgment  of  her 
indebtedness  to  her  Maker,  being  very  careful  not  to  allow  his 
features  to  assume  any  expression  whatever.  For  he  had  found  by 
experience  that  absolute  glumness,  total  suspension  of  speech  and 
facial  movement,  with  great  caution  and  reserve  in  the  use  of  the 
pocket-handkerchief,  if  resorted  to,  was  almost  a  religious  force  in 
itself. 

When  the  good  lady  had  sufficiently  discharged  all  her  obliga- 
tions in  the  proper  quarter,  another  aspect  of  the  case  seemed  to 
present  itself.  "  But,  my  dear  Titus,  what  a  terribly  anxious 
time  you  must  have  had !  " 

He  would  sooner  have  had  this  earlier.  Providence  could  have 
waited.  But — sooner  now  than  never  I  "  Why,  my  dear  old  girl," 


440  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

said  he,  "  I  was  simply  terrified  out  of  my  wits ! "  A  hearty 
laugh  came  with  this  all  the  easier  that  it  was  his  order  of  re- 
lease from  the  ten-minutes'  penal  servitude  he  had  just  undergone1 
in  the  cause  of  his  wife's  religious  sensibilities.  "  Come  now,  old 
woman,"  he  went  on,  "  say  you're  sorry  for  giving  me  such  a 
fright." 

"  Why — of  course  I'm  sorry !  What  makes  you  suppose  I'm 
not  ?  /  don't  want  to  give  you  frights,  I'm  sure !  "  She  paused 
a  moment  over  the  subject.  Though  she  was  not  killed,  it  might 
touch  her  home-circle  at  some  other  point.  "I  wonder  who  the 
women  were.  Our  laundress  brings  the  Wash  from  Streatham. 
It  might  have  been  her  coming  to-day."  She  went  on  with  par- 
ticulars of  the  Wash;  how  it  itself  was  centred  at  Wimbledon, 
but  there  was  a  succursale  at  Streatham,  whence  fine  linen,  got 
up,  might  be  brought  by  rail.  Challis  interrupted: 

"  These  two  women  I  saw  were  not  washerwomen." 

"  Oh  dear ! — were  they  ladies  ? "  A  note  of  alarm.  Marianne 
had  assumed  that  they  were  people.  Challis  strove  not  to  seem 
to  broach  derision  on  the  well-worn  subject.  He  said  seriously, 
"  Ye-es,  I  think  so."  But  then  his  inherent  vice  of  mind  got  the 
better  of  him,  and  he  added:  "Not  Duchesses,  certainly!  But 
ladies,  yes!  Perhaps  they  were  Baronets'  wives." 

Marianne  flushed  angrily.  "  Now,  Titus,  you  know  that's  non- 
sense! How  is  it  likely  that  both  of  them  should  be  Baronets' 
wives,  when  there  they  were  in  the  same  train.  And  you  know 
perfectly  well  no  one  ever  said  a  word  about  Duchesses!  So  it's 
ridiculous ! "  But  still  a  shot  home  seemed  wanting,  so  after  a 
pause  Marianne  ended  up :  "I  suppose  it  was  meant  to  be  witty. 
Only  if  it's  to  be  that,  I  shan't  sit  with  you  while  you  smoke." 

"  No,  Polly  Anne  dear,  it's  not  to  be  that.  Never  mind  my 
chaff!  I  had  the  impression  they  were  people  in  our  own  sort 
of  position  in  life — might  have  been  friends  of  ours,  don't  you 
know!  But  we  shall  hear  fast  enough." 

This  conversation  had  taken  longer  than  appears  by  the  story; 
because,  at  a  repast,  converse  travels  slowly.  Steptoe,  or  her 
equivalent,  has  to  be  found  fault  with  at  intervals,  deservedly. 
By  this  time  the  best  end  of  the  neck,  and  the  difficulty  of  carv- 
ing it,  were  things  of  the  past.  So  also  was  a  slight  sub-ruction 
occasioned  by  Challis  being  disgusting  about  Anne  Boleyn's  neck, 
and  the  bungling  executioner  who  wanted  all  his  patients'  necks 
to  be  jointed  at  the  butcher's.  It  was  an  old  joke  of  his  that  al- 
ways enraged  Marianne.  But  he  had  begged  pardon,  and  the 
topic  had  vanished  with  its  cause.  This  and  some  minor  matters 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  441 

had  made  it  coffee-time,  when  Marianne  threatened  to  retire  and 
leave  Challis  to  enjoy  his  pipe  alone. 

She  did  not  do  so,  being  assuaged  by  her  husband's  seeming  ac- 
ceptance of  social  distinctions.  ,  But  it  rankled,  too,  as  will  be 
seen  by  the  first  thing  she  says  to  him  as  he  settles  down  to  his 
pipe.  "  Duchesses,  indeed !  " 

If  it  were  fine  they  would  be  out  in  the  garden  at  the  back. 
Only  the  drizzle  is  there  still.  But  it  keeps  very  close,  too,  and 
we  must  have  the  window  wide  open.  The  lamp  won't  blow  out 
if  we  stand  it  away  on  the  sideboard.  This  sideboard  is  the  one 
that  was  bought — such  a  bargain ! — for  Great  Coram  Street.  Those 
rings  on  the  drawers  that  swing — handles  to  pull  them  open  and 
find  the  corkscrew — are  the  rings  that  Bob  in  his  infancy  was 
permitted  to  use  as  knockers  in  a  drama  he  was  the  hero  of — a 
postman  who  delivered  letters  at  very  short  intervals  indeed.  Oh, 
how  his  surroundings  of  this  evening  stung  Challis  with  memories 
of  his  past!  How  they  drove  home  to  him  the  need  to  keep  at 
bay  those  outlying  fires — or  wild  beasts,  were  they? — that  had 
made  an  inroad  on  his  present. 

If  he  could  only  have  been  a  Roman  Emperor  now!  Had  he 
not  read  lately  somewhere  how  Hadrian  had  married  two  Persian 
Princesses — real  ones! — two  at  once! — as  cool  as  a  cucumber?  Oh 
dear!  .  .  . 

What  is  that  Marianne  is  saying  ?  "  You're  not  the  one  to  talk, 
Titus ! " 

"Talk  about  what,  Polly  Anne?"  His  first  puff,  with  this, 
and  he  is  in  great  comfort  and  good-humour !  The  wild  beasts  are 
standing  over. 

"About  Duchesses  and  Baronets'  wives!  Just  look  at  your 
Grosvenor  Squares ! "  There  is  little  or  no  ill-humour  here. 
Rather  it  might  be  called  concession  to  good-humour;  an  ad- 
mission of  her  husband's  friends  to  their  talk  as  permanent  ob- 
jects— forgiven  objects,  certainly — of  critical  raillery.  No  harm 
meant ! 

And  if  there  were,  Challis  would  ignore  it,  rather  than  have 
his  pipe  spoilt  "  Don't  let's  talk  about  them,"  he  says.  "  Let's 
talk  about  our  Grosvenor  Squares." 

"  Your  Grosvenor  Squares !  " 

"  My  Grosvenor  Squares,  then !  Polly  Anne  shall  have  her  own 
way."  And  then  he  had  to  stifle  at  birth  a  most  excruciating 
thought :  "  If  I  had  only  just  succeeded  in  keeping  my  accursed 
folly  under,  I  might  now  have  continued,  '  You  know,  Polly  Anne 
dear,  they  might  be  your  Grosvenor  Squares,  too,  and  nothing 


442  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

would  please  me  better.  Why  not  be  jolly  ? ' '  How  could  he 
make  such  a  speech  now  ?  His  only  chance  of  a  real  tranquil  life 
was  to  keep  as  far  away  from  the  source  of  his  disturbance  as 
possible.  He  succeeded  in  suffocating  the  thought,  and  repeated, 
"  Let's  talk  about  my  Grosvenor  Squares." 

Marianne's  reply  was  a  grudging  sound.  "Well! — and  how  are 
they  ? "  The  unspoken  addendum  seemed  to  be :  "I  suppose  I 
must  say  something.  What  do  you  make  of  this,  my  minimum? 
Take  it!" 

But  Challis  was  in  for  pretending  that  all  was  well,  and  the 
world  unsullied  by  what  Mr.  Riderhood  called  "  offences  giv'  and 
took."  Everybody  was  very  well  at  Royd,  he  testified.  Only  this 
time  the  house-party  was  so  over-powering  that  he  had  not  seen 
nearly  so  much  of  the  family  as  on  the  previous  occasion.  In  fact, 
some  of  the  members  he  had  hardly  spoken  to — a  statement  so  in- 
tensely true  that  it  brought  his  veracity  up  to  a  reasonable  average. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  I  was  obliged  to  talk  a  bit  to  the  old 
boy.  Just  as  he  was  obliged  to  compliment  the  celebrated  author 
on  his  last  book.  But  I  never  got  on  the  subject  on  which  he  is 
really  interesting,  the  inner  life  of  the  Feudal  System.  ..." 

"  Which  is  .  .  .  ? "  said  Marianne.  Who,  on  being  offered 
"  William  the  Conqueror  "  as  a  substitute  for  his  System,  added : 
"  Oh,  I  know !  We  used  to  say  him,  '  William  the  Conqueror,  one 
thousand  and  sixty-six."  Challis  continued: 

"  Last  time  we  had  quite  a  long  talk  over  it,  and  I'm  not  at  all 
sure  that  we  don't  agree  in  the  long  run.  He  contends  that  the 
ideal  of  Feudalism  ..." 

"What's  that?" 

"  Same  as  the  Feudal  System  .  .  .  that  the  ideal  of  Feudal- 
ism, properly  understood,  is  quite  the  noblest  ..." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon,  dear  1  Just  one  moment !  Yes — Har- 
niood!  .  .  .  what?  You  must  come  near  and  speak  louder.  .  .  . 
Well! — I  suppose  he  must  have  eightpence.  But  tell  him  another 
time  I  shall  go  to  Cowdery's,  because  they  did  them  for  sixpence. 
You  haven't  twopence  in  coppers,  have  you,  dear  ? "  Challis  had, 
and  the  incident,  whatever  it  was,  closed.  Marianne's  economical 
instincts,  needed  in  old  days,  had  survived  their  necessity  over- 
much. 

But  the  ideal  of  Feudalism  didn't  get  properly  understood  that 
time.  Challis  left  it,  and  began  somewhere  else :  "  Her  ladyship  I 
scarcely  talked  to  at  all,  which  I  was  sorry  for,  as  I  don't  dislike 
her,  and  I  fancy  she  knew  some  people  named  Nettlefold  when  I 
was  a  boy."  He  was  quite  aware  of  careless  construction,  fraught 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  443 

•with  suspicion  of  imbecility;  it  really  didn't  matter.  "As  for 
Sibyl  ..." 

"  Do  you  mean  Judith  ?  " 

"  I  mean  Sibyl.  I  fancy  she'll  end  by  marrying  that  Lord  Felix- 
thorpe.  They  are  always  about  in  his  motor  together.  By-the- 
bye,  I  hardly  know  how  to  thank  that  chap.  He  lent  me  his  motor 
to  the  station  this  morning.  I  like  him.  He's  too  good  for 
Sibyl." 

But  Marianne's  attention  has  been  caught  by  the  honey  in  a 
flower  on  the  way.  "  I  don't  understand  these  people  and  their 
ways,"  she  says.  "But  I  suppose  it's  all  right  if  it's  a  motor. 
Charlotte  says  because  of  the  chauffeur." 

Challis's  sense  of  the  ludicrous  gets  the  upper  hand.  "  I  should 
have  thought  the  chauffeur  would  be  too  much  preoccupied,"  says 
he.  "Anyhow,  I  shouldn't  be  at  all  surprised  to  hear  they  were 
engaged,  any  day.  As  for  the  party  itself,  there  were  some  very 
interesting  people  this  time,  and  some  most  interesting  talk  on 
abstruse  subjects  after  dinner." 

But  the  lady  felt  she  would  rather  hear  Mrs.  Eldridge  on  the 
meaning  of  the  word  "  abstruse "  before  she  ventured  out  of  her 
depth  about  it.  A  queer  word,  that!  Also,  she  does  not  mean  to 
have  Judith  elided  in  this  way.  "What  about  the  other  one?" 
she  says  bluntly. 

There  it  was! — the  gist  of  the  whole  situation  in  a  nutshell. 
What  about  the  other  one?  As  Challis  laid  down  his  pipe,  half- 
smoked — a  strange  thing  for  him — he  was  aware  that,  without  be- 
ing absolutely  tremulous,  it  would  not  do  for  him  to  bring  his 
teeth  very  near  together  without  touching,  or  they  would  chatter. 
They  must  be  either  clutched  or  parted.  It  is  just  possible  that 
people  exist  who  have  never  had  this  experience. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

OF  MUTUAL  MISTRUST.  HANDSOME  JUDITH!  BUT  MARIANNE  HAD  NO 
WISH  TO  PRY  INTO  HER  AFFAIRS.  HOW  MATTERS  WERE  COMFORT- 
ABLER.  PLEASE  BURN  THAT  POSTSCRIPT!  CHALLIS'S  EXPLANATION. 
HOW  IT  FAILED,  AND  HE  WENT  FOR  A  WALK 

PEOPLE  go  on  making  believe  a  thing  is  true  which  each  knows 
to  be  false,  or  vice  versa,  a  very  long  time.  But  when  each  be- 
lieves the  other  thinks  he  knows  nothing  about  the  matter — or 
everything  about  it,  as  may  suit  his  case  best — reciprocal  deception 
will  have  a  still  longer  life.  And  longer  still  when  each  believes 
the  other  thinks  that  he  believes  .  .  .  and  so  on  across  and 
across  ad  infinitum,  in  shuttlecock  flights !  Our  own  belief  is  that 
if  this  topic  were  discussed  by  Senior  Wranglers,  one  or  more  of 
them  would  say  something  intelligible,  which  we  can't,  about  the 
term  of  mutual  deception  increasing  as  the  square  of  the  distance 
of  the  shuttlecock  flights,  or  their  number.  The  first  sounds  best. 

At  what  stage  of  the  labyrinth  of  reciprocities  were  Mr.  and  Mrs, 
Challis  left  when  the  gentleman  laid  down  his  pipe?  Perhaps, 
considering  that  one  has  other  uses  for  one's  brain,  it  is  safest  to 
leave  that  question  unanswered.  But  there  was  this  difference  be- 
tween them — that  Mrs.  Steptoe's  Ramsgate  tale  had  made  of  Mari- 
anne's mind  a  fruitful  soil  for  suspicion;  while  Titus's,  apart 
from  a  tendency  to  detect  the  influence  now  and  again  of  Charlotte 
Eldridge,  was  disposed  to  acquit  his  wife  of  any  ingenuity  in  culti- 
vating crops  of  the  weed — indeed,  of  very  few  mental  subtleties  of 
any  sort  whatever.  She  was  to  him  the  incarnation  of  stupidity 
and  abstract  goodness,  a  solid  substratum  of  which  was  an  article 
of  faith  with  him,  reconcilable  with  any  amount  of  little  tempers, 
or  big  ones.  And  this  faith  went  the  length  of  supposing  that 
Polly  Anne  credited  him  with  it,  and  knew  it  would  prevent  him 
imagining  that  she  could  think  him  capable  of  believing  that  she 
could  foster  suspicions  against  him.  Simple  and  intelligible! 

But  the  nervous  tremor  that  seized  on  Challis  when  he  laid  his 
pipe  down  just  now  was  too  palpable  to  leave  reciprocal  deceptions 
intact,  unless  accounted  for  as  foreign  to  the  subject.  Therefore, 
when  Marianne  recognized  the  abnormal  nature  of  the  pipe-move- 
ment by  saying,  with  the  mien  of  an  answer-seeker,  "  Are  not  you 

444 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  445 

going  to  finish  your  pipe  ? "  he  felt  that  some  intrepidity  was  called 
for,  for  both  their  sakes. 

"  Fancy  I  got  a  little  chill  in  the  damp  .  .  .  oh  no ! — I  changed 
everything.  Besides  ..." 

"Besides  what?" 

"  Well — it  was  such  an  awful  business,  you  know !  Why, 
when  we  were  driving  down  to  the  station,  how  was  I  to  know  I 
shouldn't  find  you  burned  to  a  cinder?  Just  fancy! — Polly 
Anne!" 

"  You  wouldn't  have  cared,"  says  Marianne,  softening.  This 
was  an  improvement,  and  none  the  worse  for  the  serious  note  in 
Challis's  voice  as  he  referred  again  to  his  relief  when  he  knew  the 
alarm  had  been  for  nothing.  Nevertheless,  in  a  sense,  he  was  glad 
it  was  true  that  he  had  gone  through  strain  enough  to  account 
for  fifty  nervous  ague-fits.  But  he  felt  a  dreadful  hyprocite  for  all 
that!  Just  fancy! — availing  himself  of  the  incident  to  cover  his 
embarrassment  in  answering  a  plain  question  about  his  young 
lady  friend.  But  his  duplicity  was  really  for  Marianne's  sake  as 
well  as  his  own.  Come  now ! 

"I  tell  you  what,  Tite:  you  must  have  a  regular  good  strong 
hot  toddy  to-night,  with  plenty  of  lemon.  I'll  make  it  for  you." 
This  was  good — almost  Coram  Street  again !  Why  spoil  it ?  "I 
can't  think  what  could  possess  you  to  go  catching  cold  at  the  sta- 
tion. It  didn't  do  any  good."  But  she  improved  it:  "You  must 
have  it  after  you're  in  bed,  and  you  must  have  my  duvet"  Challis 
made  no  immediate  protest  against  this  policy,  but  the  prospect 
of  a  June  night  under  a  duvet  can  never  be  tempting,  even  when 
one  anticipates  the  sleep  of  a  clear  conscience.  He  was,  however, 
really  grateful,  kissing  a  rather  improved  countenance  his  wife 
advanced  on  application :  this  phrase  is  taken  from  his  mind,  which 
had  taken  it,  more  suo,  from  the  moneylender's  column  in  the 
Times. 

"It  isn't  anything;  I've  no  objection  to  the  toddy,  though. 
Now,  tell  me  some  more  about  your  mother  .  .  .  about  the 
dentist  .  .  .  anything  .  .  .  oh,  by-the-bye!  one  of  my  letters 
was  from  Bob.  It's  upstairs  .  .  .  I'll  go  and  fetch  it." 

"Never  mind  it  now!  Or  I  can  send  Harmood.  You  didn't 
answer  my  question." 

"Let  me  see — what  was  the  question?  No,  don't  ring!  Har- 
mood won't  know  where  to  find  it.  Besides,  I  don't  want  her 
fishing  about  among  my  papers."  And  the  obstinate  man  went, 
and  came  back  with  the  letter.  If  he  hoped  that  the  previous 
question  was  going  to  lapse,  he  was  mistaken. 


446  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  The  question  was  about  your  friend  Miss  Arkroyd."  She 
took  Bob's  letter,  opened  it,  and  made  a  pretence  of  looking  at  it. 
But  she  left  her  restatement,  with  all  the  force  it  had  gathered  by 
delay,  for  his  consideration  while  she  did  so. 

He  stood  behind  her,  looking  over  her  shoulder  at  Bob's  letter. 
The  exact  thing  that  crossed  his  mind  as  he  did  so  was  that  he 
had  now  a  new  box  of  wax  vestas  in  his  pocket.  But,  then,  he 
had  had  to  quash  the  thought  that  suggested  it.  "  That's  a  por- 
trait of  the  new  second  master  putting  on  his  trousers,"  said  he. 
"  What  about  my  friend  Miss  Arkroyd,  Polly  Anne  dear  ?  .  .  . 
No,  that's  not  his  real  name.  Pitt's  his  real  name  .  .  .  Rev. 
lairus  Pitt  .  .  .  Oh,  well! — boys  will  be  boys,  you  know.  ..." 

But  Marianne  was  not  to  be  turned  from  her  purpose  by  the  Rev. 
lairus  Pitt,  whose  parents  had  not  baptized  him  considerately. 
"Is  it  all  settled  about  her  going  on  the  stage?  .  .  .  handsome 
Judith?" 

So  strangely  had  last  night's  image  of  Judith — or,  rather,  her 
identity — cancelled  her  previous  one  of  the  stage  aspirant,  that 
Chalk's  all  but  exclaimed,  "  Oh,  of  course ! — she  was  going  on  the 
stage.  Actually  I  had  forgotten  that ! "  For  he  had  forgotten  it 
— Estrild  and  all! — in  the  outbreak  of  fever  in  which  he  had  so 
completely  forgotten  himself  and  his  position  and  his  duties.  But 
he  kept  to  himself  what  would  have  been  unintelligible  to  Mari- 
anne; not  without  a  feeling  of  relief  that  her  question  had  re- 
minded him  of  an  aspect  in  which  Judith  could  be  easily  discussed 
by  both,  without  any  arriere  pensee. 

"Handsome  Judith,"  said  he  seriously  and  equably  as  he  re- 
sumed his  seat,  "has  given  up  all  idea  of  going  on  the  stage. 
That's  at  an  end." 

"  Oh ! n    A  short  and  thick  exclamation,  very  conclusive. 

"I  shall  have  to  find  someone  else  to  play  Estrild  if  I  finish 
the  play.  ..." 

Mrs.  Challis  was  considering.  "  She's  going  to  be  married,  of 
course,"  she  said. 

"  H'm ! — I've  no  reason  to  suppose  she  is." 

"You  said  her  sister  was?" 

"I  said  something  about  Sibyl  and  Lord  F.  Yes! — but  they're 
not  twins,  you  know,  she  and  Judith ! " 

"  I  know  that.  Really,  Tite,  I'm  not  the  goose  you  always  try 
to  make  me  out !  Besides,  twins  don't,  invariably :  sometimes  one 
dies  of  a  broken  heart." 

"Judith  won't  die  of  a  broken  heart  when  her  sister  marries," 
says  Challis  dryly. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  447 

"  I  understand.  But,  Tite  dear,  do  consider !  A  married  sister 
younger  than  herself !  " 

"  Miss  Arkroyd  isn't  the  sort  of  party  to  contract  matrimony  in 
order  to  walk  in  front  of  her  sister  at  Court.  Besides,  there  might 
not  be  another  coronet  handy,  to  walk  in  front  with." 

"  What  sort  of  party  is  she,  then  ? "  Challis  thought  to  himself 
that  a  certain  class  of  stupidity  makes  as  formidable  a  cross- 
examiner,  sometimes,  as  cleverness  itself.  Getting  no  immediate 
reply,  his  wife  repeated,  "  Well ! — what  sort  ? " 

"  She's  a  problem ;  that's  the  expression  nowadays.  I'm  not  sure 
it  isn't  as  good  as  another." 

"  Never  mind  the  expression !  You  know  you  admire  her  very 
much." 

"I  do.  But,  you  see,  Polly  Anne? — she  won't  act  Estrild.  So 
where  are  we? "  What  a  boon  Estrild,  recollected  just  in  time,  had 
been  in  this  conversation ! 

"  What  excuse  does  she  give  for  backing  out  ? "  The  speaker's 
grim  attitude  towards  suggested  breach  of  faith  grated  on  her  hus- 
band. But  that  was  all  in  the  day's  work — the  bad  day's  work ! 

"  I  think  I'll  have  another  pipe.  .  .  .  Oh  yes ! — I'm  feeling  all 
right  again  now;  it  was  nervous,  after  that  horrible  affair  at  the 
station.  .  .  .  I'll  nil  it  up  new,  and  then  I'll  tell  the  whole 
story." 

"  I  have  no  wish  to  pry  into  Miss  Arkroyd's  affairs.  However, 
tell  me  if  you  like." 

"  Not  if  you  don't  like ! "  Challis  is  again  puffing  in  comfort 
at  this  point,  and,  to  our  thinking,  matters  are  going  easier.  No 
particular  reply  comes  from  Marianne,  and  he  assumes  a  dis- 
claimer, saying,  "  All  right,  Polly  Anne !  I'll  go  on.  It  seems 
that  the  Great  Idea  had  something  to  do  with  it.  ..." 

"Let's  see! — that's  the  Fine  Art  turn-out.  ..." 

"Yes;  the  new  Art  and  Craft  affair — Sibyl's.  There  was  a 
family  row  when  she  proposed  to  put  up  her  name,  with  '  Limited ' 
after  it,  over  a  shop  in  Bond  Street."  He  went  on,  and  narrated 
briefly  how  Sibyl  had  met  her  parents'  remonstrances  by  saying 
that  if  Judith  went  on  the  stage,  she  didn't  see  for  her  part  why 
she  shouldn't  conduct  a  business.  Especially  as  it  was  distinctly 
understood  that  mechanics  would  not  be  employed ;  only  craftsmen. 
Also  that  the  articles  sold  would  not  be  things,  but  art-products. 
Also  that  they  would  be  curiously  wrought.  How  the  Bart,  had 
interrupted  her,  to  ask  what  on  earth  she  meant  by  Judith  going 
on  the  stage!  For  the  most  palpable  and  visible  things  would  go 
on  in  the  family  under  the  worthy  gentleman's  nose,  and  he  be 


448  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

never  a  penny  the  wiser.  "  Then,"  said  the  narrator,  "  Judith  was 
summoned,  and  there  was  a  scene.  The  upshot  was  that  both  the 
young  ladies  being  of  age,  and  having  a  right  to  go  their  own 
way,  it  seemed  at  first  that  each  would  certainly  carry  out  her  in- 
tention, in  spite  of  their  parents'  remonstrances.  But  maturer  re- 
flection showed  Sibyl,  whose  sisterly  feelings  run  high.  ..." 

"They  don't  hit  it  off?" 

"  Exactly !  .  .  .  showed  Sibyl  that  if  she  made  her  own  com- 
pliance with  her  parents'  wishes  contingent  on  Judith  throwing 
up  the  play-acting  ..." 

"I  see,"  said  Marianne  very  perceptively;  adding,  as  an  under- 
word,  "  There  was  the  lord,  too." 

"  It  was  what  John  Eldridge  would  have  called  a  wipe  for 
Judith.  And,  as  you  say,  Lord  Felixthorpe  might  have  flinched  at 
a  stage  sister-in-law." 

"  I  didn't  say  so,  but  it  was  what  I  meant."  An  uncomfortable 
look  comes  on  Marianne's  face,  as  though  something  had  crossed 
her  mind.  She  says  disconnectedly,  "  Tite  dear !  " — with  a  new 
intonation  out  of  place  at  this  juncture,  but  immediately  after 
cancels  it.  "  Never  mind ! — at  least,  never  mind  now !  Go  on 
about  Judith." 

Challis  glanced  sharply  at  her,  puzzled  by  her  words  and  their 
manner.  But  he  let  them  pass,  and  continued :  "  Anyhow,  Judith 
has  given  up  the.  stage,  and  there  is  to  be  no  shop  with  '  Sibyl 
Limited'  over  it." 

"  What  do  you  suppose  you  will  do  about  the  play  ? " 

"I  must  leave  it  alone  for  a  little,  and  see  how  matters  shape 
themselves.  You  see,  the  play  was  written  for  Judith  Arkroyd, 
and  you  can't  think  what  a  job  it  will  be  to  think  another  identity 
— Silvia  Berens,  for  instance — into  the  part.  Or  Thyrza  Shreck- 
enbaum." 

"  I  really  am  sorry  for  you,  Titus.  After  writing  things  all 
over  again  and  making  alterations !  Oh  dear ! "  Marianne 
thought  to  herself,  should  she  get  up  and  go  across  the  rug  to  her 
husband  and  kiss  him  ?  But  then  a  memory  must  needs  cross  her 
mind — that  story  of  the  Ramspate  wedding — never  cleared  up ! 
Till  that  was  done,  her  role  of  domestic  affection  stopped  short  of 
gratuitous  kissing.  Some  day  she  would  get  at  that  story,  and 
know  all  about  it. 

Meanwhile  matters  were  comf ortabler ;  no  doubt  of  it!  That 
odious  play-acting  business  was  at  an  end — at  least,  so  far  as 
Judith,  who  was  the  vicious  quitch  in  it,  was  concerned.  Titus 
might  have  as  much  Silvia  Berens  as  he  liked;  she  knew  that 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  449 

would  be  all  safe.  Also,  Marianne  misinterpreted  her  husband's 
visible  reluctance  to  talk  of  Judith,  at  first,  as  an  excusable  dis- 
gust with  the  young  lady  herself  for  the  trick  she  had  played 
him.  He  had  got  to  speak  of  her  freely  enough  at  last.  This  was 
because,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  his  sense  of  his  surrounding  relations 
was  growing  on  him,  and  each  moment  was  feeling  comfortabler 
than  its  predecessor. 

Challis  finished  his  pipe,  and  they  chatted  of  other  matters. 
Then  followed  a  good  deal  about  the  railway  accident,  and  Challis 
talked  learnedly  about  the  flashpoints  of  petroleums.  They  seemed 
quite  agreed  that  if  it  could  only  be  established  beyond  a  doubt 
that  neither  of  them  had  ever  seen  or  spoken  to  any  one  of  the 
sufferers,  or  their  relations  or  belongings,  the  calamity  would  come 
within  the  category  of  common  accidents  in  newspapers,  that 
happen  every  day  somewhere,  and  can't  be  helped.  But  Marianne 
was  terribly  afraid  that  the  guard,  who  was  burned  nearly  to  a 
cinder,  must  be  the  red-nosed  guard  who  looked  in  at  her  carriage 
in  the  morning  and  asked  if  she  had  dropped  a  pair  of  double  eye- 
glasses. That  would  bring  it  painfully  near  home. 

Mr.  Eldridge's  impulsiveness  and  some  of  his  individualities 
were  reviewed.  It  was  impossible  to  acquit  him  of  having  given 
his  friend  a  perfectly  unnecessary  fright;  but  we  would  not  dwell 
on  it,  for  look  at  the  excellence  of  his  heart!  This  quality  was 
always  saving  John  from  censure,  which  would  have  been  dealt 
out  unsparingly  to  the  possessor  of  a  bad  one.  It  is  extraordinary 
what  an  affliction  you  can  be  to  your  friends,  with  impunity,  when 
once  your  intrinsic  goodness  is  an  established  fact. 

Even  grandmamma  was  pacifically  talked  over — a  thing  that 
happened  rarely  enough.  Marianne  had  not  been  very  long  with 
her,  as,  while  they  were  at  lunch,  the  tooth-stopping  came  out,  and 
she  knew  that  if  it  was  not  replaced  the  tooth  would  come  on  ach- 
ing. These  interesting  particulars  came  gradually,  as  Marianne 
brewed  the  promised  toddy.  Challis  had  declined  to  have  it  in 
bed,  as  quite  uncalled  for  by  his  malady,  which  he  maintained, 
truly  enough,  no  doubt,  was  purely  a  nervous  affection. 

But  he  never  drank  that  toddy  1 

For  when  it  was  ready,  Marianne  said:  "It's  so  hot  I  can't 
touch  it.  You'll  have  to  wait." 

"  All  right,"  he  said.  "  I  shall  be  a  few  minutes  yet.  I  dare  say 
I'll  have  another  half-pipe  to  make  up  three.  Don't  you  stop,  old 
girl!" 

Marianne  yawned.  "  Well,  perhaps  I  may  as  well  go.  I've  had 
a  good  deal  of  running  about,  and  I'm  sleepy.  Good-night,  dear; 


450  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

don't  burn  your  mouth ! "  She  was  more  her  old  self  than  she 
had  been  for  a  long  time.  For,  you  see,  she  had  seen — but  slowly 
— that  her  cloud  had  cleared  away.  Challis's  own  feeling  that 
— for  him — Judith  must  cease,  had  worked  itself  into  speech  that 
his  wife  had  merely  supposed  to  relate  to  the  chute  of  the  pro- 
jected drama.  It  was  a  good  wind  that  blew  Judith  away,  what- 
ever quarter  it  blew  from. 

She  went  close  to  her  husband,  giving  him  the  right  piece  of 
her  face  to  kiss.  "Which  tooth  was  it?"  said  he.  She  showed 
him,  tapping  it.  "  It's  a  very  little  hole,"  he  said,  "  and  a  good 
tooth !  "  She  replied :  "  That's  why  Mr.  Leaver  says  it  should  be 
stopped  with  gold.  Now,  good-night,  dear!  Drink  the  toddy,  and 
don't  be  very  late !  " 

Now,  if  only  this  woman  had  just  gone  straight  away  to  bed  and 
slept!  And  if  that  man,  who  had  fully  sworn  to  himself — mind 
you ! — that  the  thing  he  had  to  do  was  to  thrust  his  past  delirium 
behind  him,  had  but  smoked  his  pipe,  drunk  his  toddy,  slept  and 
waked  next  day  a  wiser  man,  might  not  the  whole  of  the  silly  story 
have  passed  into  oblivion,  and  left  this  prosy  tale  of  ours  without  a 
raison-d'etre?  Quite  possible!  But,  then,  no  such  thing  hap- 
pened. 

For  Marianne  seemed  to  hang  fire  and  hesitate  over  her  de- 
parture. She  paused  as  she  passed  the  open  window;  the  sweet 
air,  now  that  the  rain  had  stopped,  was  pleasant  after  so  much 
smoke.  "  What  a  beautiful  moonlight  night  it's  come  out ! "  she 
said.  But  the  moonlight  grated  on  her  husband.  That  moon  was 
only  a  day  older  and  a  shade  smaller  than  the  full  orb  shining  on 
the  little  Tophet  garden  and  that  Calypso  of  last  night,  robed  in  a 
stellar  universe  of  moonsparks.  Why  need  the  rain-rack,  flying 
northward  after  doing  the  garden  so  much  good,  leave  conscious 
guilt  exposed  to  the  sight  of  Artemis — or  Hecate — who  knew  all 
about  it  yesterday  ?  Why  not  have  gone  on  raining  a  little  longer  ? 

Marianne  took  another  view.  She  said  again,  "  How  lovely  the 
moon  is,  Tite !  "  in  an  unusual  way  for  her.  For  she  was  not  given 
to  romantic  sentiments.  Her  husband  read  in  her  manner  a 
recognition  of  their  rapprochement;  for  such  it  was,  though  no 
official  recognition  had  been  bestowed  on  distance,  its  condition 
precedent.  He  went  and  stood  beside  her;  and,  for  her  sake  as 
well  as  his  own — so  he  thought — gazed  on  the  moon  with  all  the 
effrontery  of  those  experienced  reprobates,  Mr.  Brown  and  Lord 
Smith.  He  forsook  the  toddy  to  do  so,  having  just  tried  it  with 
his  fingers,  and  decided  it  could  be  touched  with  safety. 

They  stood  side  by  side  at  the  window ;  a  minute  or  more,  maybe. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  451 

Then  she  said,  almost  as  though  conscious  of  some  unscheduled 
ratification :  "  That'll  do,  dear !  Now  suppose  I  go  to  bed.  The 
toddy  will  be  cold."  He  followed  her  to  the  foot  of  the  stairs,  to 
endorse  the  cordiality  of  his  send-off.  There  she  kissed  him  again, 
but  said,  rather  puzzling  him :  "  I  know  you've  forgiven  me,  Tite 
dear!" 

He  was  moved  as  well  as  puzzled.  "  But,  my  dearest  girl,"  said 
he,  "  what  have  I  to  forgive  ? " 

"  What  I  said  in  my  letter."  Whatever  this  woman's  faults 
were,  she  was  always  downright. 

"  But,  dear  old  goose,  what  did  it  all  come  to  ?  You  couldn't 
get  away  from  home  just  now,  or  something.  What  did  it  mat- 
ter ?  That  was  all  right ! "  Oh,  how  he  wished  he  could  have 
added,  "Come  next  time"!  But,  alas! — that  was  all  over  now; 
reasons  why  jostled  each  other  in  his  brain.  No  more  Royd! 

"  I  didn't  mean  that,"  says  the  downright  one,  pushing  facts 
home.  "  I  meant  what  I  wrote  at  the  end,  on  the  back  of  the  last 
sheet.  It  was  all  nonsense,  you  know;  I  never  meant  it." 

"I  didn't  see  the  back  of  the  last  sheet  I  read  it  in  a  great 
hurry  just  going  in  to  dinner  last  night." 

"  Well ! — it  was  there.  Don't  read  it ;  burn  it !  Can't  you  get 
it  now,  and  burn  it  for  me  to  see?  I  would  so  much  rather." 

Challis  should  have  replied  that  he  had  got  the  letter  safe  some- 
where, he  knew,  and  he  would  look  it  up  after  he  had  finished  his 
half-pipe.  The  reprobates  the  story  has  referred  to  would  have 
done  so ;  would  probably  have  gone  the  length  of  turning  out  their 
pockets,  slapping  themselves  on  those  outworks;  would  even  have 
said,  being  men  of  spirit,  Dammy,  madam,  the  Devil  was  in  it  if 
they  could  tell  what  had  become  of  the  letter !  Come  what  might, 
they  would  have  cut  a  figure!  Challis  cut  none,  or  if  he  did  it 
was  a  poor  one.  The  fact  is  that,  considered  as  a  liar,  he  was 
good  for  nothing — had  a  very  low  standard  of  mendacity;  and,  in- 
deed, had  suffered  so  much  over  this  affair  of  Judith  that  it  wae  a 
luxury  to  him  to  say  something,  at  last,  without  any  reserves. 

"It's  burned  already,  Polly  Anne.  So  you  may  be  easy. 
Ta-ta ! "  He  had  said  it  before  he  remembered  how  unready  he 
must  perforce  be  with  details. 

"  Oh !  "  rather  curtly.  "  I  suppose  you  lit  your  pipe  with  it  ? 
Very  well!" 

He  had  better  have  let  misapprehension  stand.  Better  that 
amount  of  false  construction  than  the  actual  facts.  But  he  must 
needs  clear  his  character.  "No,  Polly  Anne;  it  was  really  no 
fault  of  mine.  It  was  the  merest  accident.  ..."  He  stuttered 


452  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

over  it;  and  she,  seeing  he  had  some  tale  to  tell  or  reserve  about  it 
— but,  to  do  her  justice,  without  any  idea  of  a  lion  in  ambush — 
waited  with  patience.  This,  as  you  know,  is  the  deadliest  way  in 
which  stammered  information  can  be  received. 

"It  really  was — you  know  how  imp  .  .  .  difficult  it  is  to  read 
by  moonlight — and  my  wax  vesta  I  lit  to  read  it  with  was  the  last 
I  had.  It  was  when  I  threw  it  away — yes,  when  I  threw  it  away 
it  set  fire  to  the  letter.  It  burned  my  fingers,  and  I  threw  it  on 
the  ground."  What  a  lame  business!  And  he  dared  not  mention 
Judith,  and  knew  it- 
Marianne's  voice  is  changing  a  little  as  she  repeats :  "  It  burned 
your  fingers,  and  you  threw  it  on  the  ground  ? "  She  does  not  use 
the  words  "  Please  explain ! "  aloud.  She  merely  leaves  them  un- 
spoken. 

But  her  husband  has  only  begun  saying  "Yes  ..."  uneasily, 
when  she  cuts  him  short.  "Were  they  dining  by  moonlight  at 
Koyd  last  night?" 

"  No — no — of  course  not !    You  don't  understand.  ..." 

"  I  don't." 

"  I  had  read  the  letter  myself  just  before  dinner,  and  I  missed 
reading  the  postscript,  because  it  was  late,  and  the  dinner-gong 
sounded.  This  of  the  wax  match  was  in  the  garden,  after."  It 
is  coming  slowly — the  inevitable — and  he  is  beginning  to  know  it. 
Maybe  Marianne  sees  the  flush  mounting  on  his  face. 

"  I  thought  you  never  saw  the  back  of  the  last  sheet?  Why  did 
you  want  to  read  the  rest  again  ?  Had  I  said  anything  wrong  ? " 

"No,  dear! — you  don't  understand.    Listen.   ..." 

"  Yes — go  on !  "  Because  what  has  to  be  listened  to  seems  to 
hang  fire.  However,  it  comes  in  the  end. 

"  It  was  not  I  myself  that  wanted  to  read  the  letter  again  just 
then.  ..." 

"  Who  had  read  it  before? " 

"  I  didn't  mean  that,  either,  dear — do  wait !  " 

"  I  am  waiting  .  .  .  tell  me  .  .  .  tell  me  at  once ! "  Surely 
Marianne's  breath  came  a  little  short  on  the  last  words,  and  she  is 
leaning  on  the  banister-rail  perceptibly.  His  answer  comes  in  the 
quick  undertone  of  one  who  wishes  to  get  something  said  that  he 
would  have  been  glad  to  leave  unuttered. 

"  I  was  asked  if  I  thought  you  would  mind  your  answer  to  their 
invitation  being  shown,  and  I  could  not  remember  a  word  in  the 
letter  that  I  thought  you  could  possibly  object  to  my  show- 
ing .  .  ." 

"  Who  do  you  mean  by  *  they '  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  453 

"  The— the  family.    Lady  Arkroyd.   ..." 

"  My  message  was  to  Judith  Arkroyd,  who  wrote  to  ma  Do 
you  mean  her  when  you  say  they?  Who  else  was  there  when  she 
saw  the  letter  ?  " 

"  No  one." 

"  You  had  better  tell  me  exactly  what  happened." 

"  I  had.  They  had  a  party,  and  dancing  going  on.  I  went  away 
to  a  quiet  garden  there  is,  to  be  out  of  the  noise,  and  Miss  Arkroyd 
was  there.  She  had  seen  your  letter  arrive  for  me  when  the  post 
came,  and  had  seen  me  after  reading  it  just  before  dinner,  and 
seen  me  slip  it  in  my  pocket.  She  asked  to  be  allowed  to  see  it — 
I  know  with  some  idea  of  inducing  you  to  change  your  mind  and 
come,  and  I  ...  I  may  have  been  wrong,  you  know  .  .  .  only 
remember  I  had  not  read  the  postscript  you  speak  of  ...  well! 
I  let  her  look  at  it." 

"  Then  about  the  matches  and  the  fire? " 

"  Just  an  accident.  I  held  a  match  for  her  to  read  by,  and  it 
caught  a  gauze  veil  she  had.  It  was  just  got  clear  in  time  to 
save  her  a  bad  burning.  But  the  letter  caught  in  the  blaze,  and 
was  burned  before  I  could  save  it.  That  is  all ! " 

"Is  that  quite  all?" 

"Quite  all!" 

"  It  is  quite  enough.     Good-night !  " 

"Oh,  Polly  Anne,  Polly  Anne!— don't  think— don't  be- 
lieve? ..." 

"Goon.    What?" 

"...  anything  but  what  I've  told  you  .  .  .  Oh,  my 
dear!  .  .  ." 

But  Marianne  has  left  him,  and  is  on  her  way  upstairs.  She  is 
quite  changed  from  the  Polly  Anne  who  was  standing  by  the  win- 
dow but  now.  She  walks  stonily,  and  looks  white.  But  her 
fortitude  only  lasts  as  far  as  the  return  of  the  staircase.  As  she 
turns,  and  knows  that  he  can  see  her  face  from  below,  lighted  as 
it  is  by  the  gas  on  the  landing  above,  she  breaks  down  altogether, 
and  reaches  her  bedroom-door  in  a  passion  of  hysterical  tears. 

"  No — no — no — no !  "  she  cries.  "  Take  away  your  hands.  Go 
away  and  leave  me."  For  her  husband  has  followed  her,  three 
steps  at  a  time.  He  knows,  and  the  knowledge  is  a  knife  in  his 
heart,  how  wrong  he  has  been ;  not  in  falling  in  love  out  of  bounds 
— a  thing  he  had  no  control  over — but  in  showing  that  letter, 
which  he  could  easily  have  refused  to  do.  Passion  and  action  live 
on  opposite  sides  of  the  river.  Now,  what  worlds  would  he  give 
to  find  palliation  for  himself  in  his  inner  conscience! — it  is  the 


454  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

want  of  that  that  ties  the  tongue  of  his  explanation  to  her.  Yet 
he  must  qualify  his  contrition,  if  only  that  plenary  admission  of 
guilt  would  be  taken  to  imply  still  more,  and  worse,  to  come. 

"  Polly  Anne  dearest,  for  God's  sake  don't  run  away  with  a  false 
idea !  A  great  deal  too  much  is  being  made  of  a  trifle.  If  you 
would  only  be  patient  with  me!  ..." 

"  I  am  patient.  Now  tell — what  is  the  false  idea  ?  Why  is  it 
too  much?  Why  is  it  a  trifle? — showing  my  letter  to — to  that 
woman  before  you  had  read  it  yourself !  "  She  is  killing  her  sobs 
as  she  speaks,  and  has  a  hard  struggle.  They  are  heads  of  a 
Lernsean  Hydra. 

"  Don't  be  unfair  to  me,  dear !  I  had  read  it,  all  except  that  one 
bit  on  the  back.  It  was  so  easy  to  miss  it !  " 

"/  never  do — things  on  the  back  of  letters." 

"It  was  stupid  of  me.  But  what  you  don't  understand,  dear, 
is  that  I  wanted  Miss  Arkroyd  to  read  your  message  herself. 
There  was  certainly  nothing  you  could  have  minded  her  seeing  in 
the  letter  itself." 

"  Indeed !     How  do  you  know  ?  " 

"Well!— I  don't  know;  I  think." 

"  And  when  you  had  put  Miss  Arkroyd  out,  what  happened  ? " 

"  How  do  you  mean  '  what  happened  '  ? " 

"  Oh,  don't  tell  me  if  you  don't  like !     I  am  out  of  it ! " 

Now,  Challis  would  have  liked  to  be  able  to  say,  "  It  is  by  your 
own  choice  that  you  are  out  of  it;  and  the  whole  of  this  misunder- 
standing has  grown,  through  a  good  intention  of  this  lady  you  hate, 
to  bring  you  into  it."  But  he  had  tied  his  own  tongue.  "  It " — 
whatever  it  was — had  ceased  to  exist  for  him  now  at  Royd.  And 
probably  his  future  intercourse  with  Grosvenor  Square  would  be 
limited  to  just  such  an  allowance  of  formal  calls  as  would  draw  a 
veil  over  strained  relations,  and  silence  suggestion  of  ostracism. 
His  behaviour  of  the  previous  evening  had  created  a  no-thorough- 
fare; but  the  conversation  had  hardly  arrived  at  the  notice-board. 

"  Nothing  happened ;  the  burns  were  not  bad."  His  words  were 
almost  true — the  prevarication,  in  this  form,  of  the  slightest,  but 
the  notice-board  was  clearly  legible  by  now.  "  We  left  the  garden, 
and  no  more  was  said  about  the  letter,  because  some  men  from  the 
house  joined  us,  talking  politics." 

But  Marianne  has  gone  stony.  Her  manner  rejects  the  men 
from  the  house,  who  talked  politics.  "  I  s-see,"  she  says,  fully  ex- 
pressing the  closure  of  her  mind  against  all  extenuations,  pallia- 
tions, evasions,  or  excuses.  "The  letter  was  burned,  and  there 
was  an  end  of  it." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  455 

"  Exactly !  An  end  of  it !  "  He  extended  the  phrase  in  his 
mind  to  his  relations  with  Royd,  and  all  belonging  to  them. 

Marianne  waited  so  incisively  for  anything  further  to  be  said 
by  her  husband,  and  he  felt  so  certain  that  if  the  no-thoroughfare 
notice  were  disregarded,  the  trespassers  would  suffer  penalties — his 
own  being  enforced  disclosure  of  what  would  be  injurious  to  both, 
and  quite  useless — that  he  was  almost  glad  when  his  wife  said 
stonily:  "Your  whisky  is  getting  cold.  Perhaps  you  had  better 
take  it."  He  answered  drearily,  "  Perhaps  I  had,"  and  went  away, 
but  not  to  the  dining-room.  He  went  to  his  own  study,  and  sat 
there  aimlessly,  thinking,  in  the  half-dark.  Presently,  making  as 
little  noise  as  possible,  he  went  downstairs,  put  out  the  lights 
that  had  been  left  burning,  and,  going  stealthily  out  at  the  front- 
door, went  for  a  walk  in  the  moonlight. 

But  that  carefully  mixed  nightcap  remained  untouched,  and  was 
placed  by  Harmood  on  the  sideboard,  as  an  embarrassment  diffi- 
cult to  dispose  of  where  no  man-servant  was  kept.  And  there  it 
reproached  its  maker  and  its  non-consumer  in  the  morning. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

HOW  CHALLIS  AND  HIS  WIFE  PARTED.  A  DINNER  AT  THE  CLUB,  AND  HIS 
RETURN  FROM  IT.  WHAT  HAS  BECOME  OF  YOUR  MISTRESS?  A 
LETTER  FROM  MARIANNE  CRAIK.  DAMN  CHARLOTTE  ELDRIDGE  ! 

THERE  are  no  hours  more  miserable  than  the  first  ones  of  a  day 
after  a  quarrel,  or  high  tension  akin  to  a  quarrel.  Next  morning 
at  the  Hermitage  found  it  full  of  silences  and  reserves.  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Challis  were  speaking  with  studied  forbearance — even  civility 
— towards  one  another.  The  children  had  been  told  to  make  less 
noise,  and  had  made  it,  but  had  then  been  told  to  make  still  less, 
and  so  on,  to  the  point  of  virtual  extinction.  Their  mother  had 
risen  at  her  usual  time,  but  looking  ill,  and  had  scarcely  found 
fault  with  her  usual  spirit.  And  yet  Harmood,  whose  intuitions 
the  story  is  now  following,  observed  that  the  butter  had  a  flavour — 
namely,  the  one  it  so  often  has;  and  the  eggs  were  the  sort  that 
won't  boil.  There  is  another  sort,  which  has  a  passion  for  disin- 
tegration; but  this  time  it  was  the  former,  which  is  worse;  and 
yet  they  were  accepted  in  silence.  Harmood  saw  clearly  that  there 
had  been  words,  and  forthwith  resolved  to  select  this  moment  to 
give  warning  suddenly — a  step  she  had  been  contemplating  for 
some  weeks.  An  up-to-date  English  servant  respects  herself  more, 
or  less,  in  proportion  to  the  degree  of  confusion  into  which  she 
can  plunge  her  employers  when  she  throws  up  her  situation. 

Mr.  Challis  had  only  waited — Harmood  noticed — to  see  the  chil- 
dren as  they  went  out  for  an  early  walk,  not  to  be  in  the  hot  sun 
too  much.  He  kissed  both  affectionately,  but  his  customary  jokes 
with  them  were  rather  under  his  breath.  He  then  went  to  his 
room,  and  presumably  wrote  something  Harmood's  inner  con- 
sciousness was  able  to  form  a  low  opinion  of,  without  perusal;  for 
whenever  she  did  out  the  study  she  mentally  classed  MS.  litera- 
ture as  a  lot  of  stuff. 

Mrs.  Challis  transacted  necessary  household  business,  and  went 
straight  to  her  room,  saying  she  was  going  out,  and  was  not  sure 
when  she  should  be  back.  At  the  street-door  she  was  stopped  by 
Harmood,  respectfully  but  firmly.  Was  she  likely  to  be  back  be- 
fore twelve?  She  couldn't  say;  why?  Of  course,  because  Miss 

456 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  457 

Harmood  wished  to  give  warning,  and  if  she  did  not  do  so  before 
midday,  she  would  have  to  pass  twenty-four  hours  more  under  the 
roof  that  had  sheltered  her  for  three  years  at  least.  As  Mrs. 
Challis  might  be  out,  she  would  prefer  to  give  a  month's  warning 
forthwith. 

Mrs.  Challis  did  not  show  the  panic  Harmood  had  promised 
herself  the  sight  of.  On  the  contrary,  she  barely  raised  her  eye- 
brows as  she  answered :  "  Certainly,  Harmood !  To-day  is  the 
twentieth,"  and  was  actually  going  out.  But  she  paused  an  in- 
stant at  a  prefatory  cough  from  the  handmaiden.  Had  the  latter 
any  complaint  to  make?  The  answer  renounced  complaint,  but 
with  implication  of  generosity.  "  Very  well ! "  said  Mrs.  Challis 
thereon.  "I  can't  wait.  The  twentieth."  And  went  away,  leav- 
ing Harmood  mortified. 

She  came  back  between  twelve  and  one.  She  was  heated  with 
walking,  but  might  have  been  crying,  too.  So  Harmood  thought 
when  she  let  her  in.  She  went  upstairs,  speaking  to  her  husband 
outside  his  door.  She  had  just  come  back  from  Charlotte's,  she 
said.  Was  he  there?  Yes — he  was,  and  came  out  at  once  to  speak 
with  her.  He  was  amiable,  but  subdued.  Had  waited  for  her,  in 
case  there  was  anything — a  vague  expression,  but  conciliatory  un- 
der the  circumstances.  There  was  certainly  nothing — no  doubt 
about  it.  Was  he  going  out? — his  coat  suggested  it  Yes;  he 
would  not  be  in  to  lunch.  A  letter  had  come  by  the  second  post, 
asking  him  to  meet  a  man  on  business  in  the  City  at  two.  He  would 
lunch  at  Scallopini's,  and  stay  at  his  club,  where  he  had  promised 
to  dine  with  his  publisher  and  some  authors  at  7.30.  But  he 
would  not  come  in  late. 

Then  Marianne  said  coldly:  "Don't  hurry  on  my  account." 

He  answered,  as  cheerfully  as  he  dared — that  is,  not  to  seem  to 
ignore  the  conditions:  "  You'll  go  to  bed  just  the  same,  of  course? " 

Her  reply  was :  "  I  shall  go  to  bed."  Nothing  more.  She  went 
on  to  her  own  bedroom. 

Challis  could  almost  have  sworn  he  heard  a  sob  as  the  door 
closed.  Was  it  so  or  not?  He  could  not  bear  the  doubt.  He 
would  risk  it — go  to  her,  throw  himself  at  her  feet,  cry  out  in  his 
misery  for  pardon  for  the  past,  and  oblivion;  for  a  pact  of  hope 
for  the  days  and  hours  to  come.  If  he  could  only  have  made  his 
decision  a  few  seconds  sooner!  But  he  just  missed  the  chance,  as 
Marianne  opened  her  door  and  came  back,  stony. 

"I  forgot  to  tell  you.     Harmood  has  given  warning." 

"Harmood!  Why — what  on  earth  has  the  woman  to  complain 
of?" 


458  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"I  can't  say.  I  have  given  her  no  cause  of  complaint.  She 
makes  no  complaint,  as  I  understand." 

"Well! — that  is  extraordinary!  However,  she's  not  indis- 
pensable. We  can  do  without  her.  Only  you'll  have  such  a 
bother  to  find  someone  else." 

Marianne  said :  "  I  don't  think  I  shall."  And  Challis  imagined 
that  she  referred  to  some  possible  servant  or  useful  agency  that 
she  knew  of.  But  the  thought  in  her  mind  was  different,  as  we 
shall  see.  Challis  recalled  her  words  afterwards.  All  that  this 
talk  of  Harmood  meant  for  him  then  was  that  a  good  impulse  had 
been  spoiled  by  it. 

He  looked  at  his  watch,  and  found  he  would  only  just  have 
time  to  get  to  town,  get  some  lunch,  and  be  ready  for  his  appoint- 
ment, which  was  an  imperative  one.  He  changed  slippers  for 
boots,  and  was  ready.  With  his  hand  on  the  open  street-door,  he 
called  out  to  his  wife :  "  Good-bye,  then !  I'm  off."  Contrary  to 
his  expectation,  she  came  downstairs. 

"  You  are  off,"  she  said,  repeating  his  words.  "  Good-bye, 
then !  "  And  rather  to  his  surprise  she  kissed  him,  saying :  "  Yea 
— then,  good-bye !  "  All  the  manner  of  it  was  a  little  odd.  But 
his  instincts — may  be  mistaken  ones — told  him  to  let  well  alone, 
He  replied  with  a  warmer  kiss  than  hers  had  been,  and  a  moment 
after  was  on  his  way  to  East  Putney  Station.  He  was  very  un- 
comfortable about  losing  sight  of  her  for  so  long.  But,  after  all, 
it  might  give  their  relations  a  better  chance  of  readjustment. 
Nothing  like  a  pause! 

A  business  colloquy  of  some  warmth,  with  a  reference  to  possible 
legal  proceedings,  was  followed  first  by  a  pleasant  afternoon  at  the 
Club,  and  next  by  a  very  informal  dinner  of  six — of  whom  at 
least  three  were  amusing  dogs — and  lastly  by  a  saunter  homewards 
with  one  of  the  amusing  dogs,  who  wished  him  good-night  at 
Gloucester  Road  Station.  All  these  experiences  were  of  the  sort 
that  brushes  cobwebs  from  the  mind,  and  Challis  was  feeling  much 
freer  at  heart  when,  after  midnight,  his  latchkey  clicked  in  the 
front-door  at  the  Hermitage,  and  admitted  him  to  a  silent  house. 

Well! — of  course,  a  house  is  silent  when  everyone  has  gone  to 
bed.  What  would  you  have? 

Challis  lightdd  his  candle  and  gathered  up  his  letters  to  read 
in  his  study.  He  went  furtively  up  the  two  short  stairflights, 
secretly  hoping  that  Marianne  would  speak  from  her  room  to  him; 
for,  however  quiet  he  was,  she  almost  always  heard  him,  the  ex- 
ceptions being  when  he  was  unusually  late,  and  she  very  sound 
asleep.  He  paused  a  moment  to  favour  the  chance.  Not  a  sound ! 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  459 

He  glanced  at  her  door  with  an  uncomfortable  feeling  he  could 
not  at  first  account  for,  a  sense  that  it  disclaimed  an  inmate.  In  a 
moment,  however,  he  mastered  the  reason  of  that.  Nothing  so 
very  unusual!  Only  that  she  had  forgotten  to  put  her  boots  out. 
Well! — this  wasn't  a  hotel.  How  absurdly  nervous  he  was,  and 
fanciful ! 

He  turned  into  his  study  and  lighted  his  reading-candle,  with 
the  reflector.  He  would  be  there  some  time;  there  were  so  many 
letters.  First  he  would  open  the  window,  though,  to  let  the  sweet 
night -air  in.  It  was  so  overpoweringly  hot. 

Then  he  sat  down  to  his  desk  and  began  upon  his  letters.  One 
advertisement  of  no  value.  Two  advertisements  of  no  value.  A 
thick  letter  from  Nebraska  to  the  author  of  his  own  first  work, 
etc.,  etc.,  care  of  his  publisher;  that  might  be  amusing.  An  en- 
closure of  slip-cuttings;  so  might  that.  .  .  .  Hullo! — what  was 
the  meaning  of  this?  One  to  Mrs.  Alfred  Challis  among  his  let- 
ters !  Marianne  had  overlooked  it.  Odd,  that ! 

But — but — but,  that  was  not  all!  Another,  and  another  to  Mrs. 
Alfred  Challis.  Overlooked? — impossible!  Utterly  impossible! 
She  must  be  still  out.  Where  could  she  have  gone?  Did  not  she 
say  she  had  been  at  Charlotte's  in  the  morning  ?  Where  else  could 
she  go?  Where  else  was  there  to  go?  Tulse  Hill?  Why — she 
was  there  yesterday  I 

He  sat  there  a  full  two  minutes,  without  dropping  the  letter  he 
held  when  the  thing  amiss  first  caught  him,  or  changing  his 
posture  of  face  or  hand.  He  sat  pursuing  possibilities  in  thought, 
and  overtaking  none.  Then,  with  sudden  resolution  in  a  face 
white  as  the  envelope  he  dropped,  he  rose  and  went  straight  to  his 
wife's  room,  lamp  in  hand.  On  the  way  a  thought  came — it  was 
just  a  bare  chance! — had  she  gone  to  bed  early  with  a  headache, 
saying  she  was  not  to  be  disturbed  ? — and  had  all  these  letters  come 
by  the  last  post?  Not  probable,  certainly,  but  not  impossible! 
At  least,  he  would  knock  at  her  door  before  going  in  and  waking 
her  suddenly.  She  would  be  less  surprised. 

He  tapped  and  heard  nothing.  He  listened  longer  than  need 
was,  clinging  artificially  to  hope.  Then  he  opened  the  door  and 
went  in.  There  was  no  one  in  the  room. 

Was  there  nothing  that  would  give  him  a  clue  at  once?  He 
could  not  think  coolly  yet;  utterly  useless  with  this  nervous  ague- 
fit  on  him!  He  knew  it  would  subside  in  time,  and  he  would  be 
able  to  think.  But  for  now,  was  there  nothing? 

For  instance,  in  the  appearance  of  the  bed?  Yes — something! 
Surelj  his  recollection  did  not  deceive  him.  Should  not  the  bed, 


460  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

by  rights,  be  "turned  down,"  and  be  yawning,  as  it  were,  for  its 
occupant?  Would  there  not  be,  normally,  some  appearance  of 
night-clothes;  if  not  laid  out  on  the  coverlid  as  though  courting 
their  contents,  at  least  beneath  the  pillow?  He  threw  it  aside; 
there  was  nothing. 

On  the  dressing-table,  then  ?  Yes ! — the  brushes  and  combs  were 
not  there.  They  might  be  in  the  drawer,  though.  But  how  about 
those  stoppered  bottles?  One  was  clear  in  his  memory — square, 
with  horizontal  corrugations  and  a  flat  disc  with  a  statement,  haz- 
arded by  a  writer  in  gold,  that  it  contained  eau-de-Cologne. 
Where  was  it  ?  Not  on  that  table,  nor  the  chimney-piece.  A  great 
fear  was  on  him  that  she  had  gone!  Then  it  flashed  upon  him 
that  if  she  had,  she  would  have  taken  her  jewels  with  her.  Where 
did  she  keep  them?  In  the  top  wardrobe-drawer.  It  would  be 
locked,  but  he  and  she  had  a  secret  knowledge  that  one  key 
opened  all  the  drawers  alike.  He  felt  like  an  over-sensitive  de- 
tective; but  he  got  the  key  and  opened  it.  The  jewel-case  was 
there,  sure  enough,  but — not  locked!  He  opened  it,  and  saw  at  a 
glance  that  none  of  her  favourites  were  there.  Oh  yes — she  had 
gone !  Marianne  was  gone — there  was  no  doubt  of  it  now ! 

He  dropped  back,  feeling  sick,  on  a  chair,  face  to  face  with 
reality.  Event  agrees  ill  with  men  of  Challis's  temperament,  the 
sort  that  can  become  unhealthily  excited  by  the  puppets  of  their 
own  imagination.  That  railway  accident  yesterday  was  bad 
enough!  But  this — think  of  it! — at  home,  with  the  children  to 
tell  in  the  morning! 

He  tried  to  think — what  next?  Rouse  the  servants?  Of  course; 
but  which  servant?  Nurse  by  preference,  certainly.  Procul  absit 
Steptoe,  and  even  Miss  Harmood!  He  rose,  feeling  weak;  and 
without  his  lamp,  for  all  the  house  was  navigable  in  the  glorious 
moonlight,  found  his  way  to  the  nursery.  Nurse  slept  in  the  lit- 
tle room  just  off  it  on  the  landing.  But  the  rooms  had  a  door  be- 
tween, in  case  of  anything  in  the  night.  That  is  nurse's  phrase, 
not  ours. 

Just  as  Challis  was  framing  in  his  mind  the  question  he  should 
ask — and  all  forms  that  suggested  themselves  seemed  to  intensify 
the  position — the  thought  crossed  his  mind  that  it  would  be  a 
relief  to  see  those  youngsters  asleep  in  the  moonlight.  Surely  it 
would ! — or,  would  it  ?  He  would  risk  it.  He  opened  the  nursery- 
door  furtively,  and  stole  in.  But  darkness  reigned — curtain-dark- 
ness; shutter-darkness.  Challis  knew  that  little  girls  that  sleep 
exposed  to  moonbeams  suffer  in  some  mysterious  way — go  blind,  or 
go  silly,  or  are  witched  away  by  bogles.  He  wasn't  sure  which. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  461 

He  tiptoed  to  the  window,  and  could  let  in  the  light  without  noise, 
for,  as  it  turned  out,  there  was  no  shutter.     What  of  the  bed  ?     He 
knew  how  nice  they  were  in  bed.     All  children  are. 
But  the  bed  was  empty. 


Mrs.  Steptoe,  roused  from  her  first  sleep,  which  was  about  two 
hours  old,  and  a  promising  sample,  thought  at  first  that  she  was 
back  in  Tallack  Street,  and  that  the  noise  was  her  lamented  hus- 
band, the  worse  for  liquor.  Further  revived,  her  decision  that  it 
might  be  thieves,  and  that  her  choice  of  action  would  lie  between 
affecting  sleep  and  calling  "  Police ! "  from  the  window,  was  short- 
lived ;  and  she  followed  it  up  by  referring  her  master's  cries  to  fire. 
Hannood's  consciousness  passed  through  analogous  phases,  but 
with  this  difference:  that  the  second  one  did  not  suggest  immediate 
action.  A  servant  who  had  just  given  warning  might  surely  go 
on  pretending  to  be  asleep,  unblamed.  Was  she  there  at  all,  tech- 
nically ? 

However,  the  thought  of  the  great  terror  "  Fire ! "  brings  the 
laziest  from  his  bed.  Neither  waited  to  be  sure  that  she  was 
being  called  by  name,  but  ran  out  on  the  landing  above,  be- 
longing to  the  attics,  to  be  encountered  by  Challis's  voice  from  be- 
low, shouting  madly,  "  What  has  become  of  your  mistress  ?  Where 
are  the  children?  Where  on  earth  are  you  all?  Come  down  at 
once !  "  and  so  on. 

Mrs.  Steptoe's  tremulous  accents  stopped  him,  but  he  could  not 
catch  what  she  said.  "  Come  down  here  at  once,"  he  cried  again, 
"  and  speak  up  plain.  Where  is  your  mistress,  and  the  children  ?  " 
He  just  got  his  voice  under  control  for  the  question. 

Mrs.  Steptoe  came  down  half-way.  Her  costume  forbade  a  com- 
plete descent.  "The  mistress  and  the  young  ladies  and  nurse, 
sir?" 

"Yes! — the  mistress  and  the  young  ladies  and  nurse.  Where 
are  they  ?  Speak  quick !  " 

Mrs.  Steptoe  found  voice  enough  to  say :  "  Ain't  they  at  Tulse 
Hill,  sir?" 

"That's  what  I  want  to  know.    Do  you  know?" 

Mrs.  Steptoe  found  some  more  voice.  "  Didn't  the  mistress  say 
Tulse  Hill,  Harmood?"  She  asked  the  question  of  the  unseen, 
above,  not  without  recognition  of  her  own  necessity  as  a  go- 
between.  Direct  communications  from  a  house-and-parlour-maid, 
single,  in  a  nightgown,  could  hardly  be  in  order  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. 


462  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Mrs.  Challis  said  Tulse  Hill,  Mrs.  Steptoe."  The  delicacy  of 
the  position  is  recognized,  and  the  intercessor  and  mediator  in- 
stalled. Who  repeats  the  words  officially,  and  adds,  as  a  mere 
human  creature :  "  My  word  a  mercy,  what  a  turn  it  giv' ! " 

"  What  did  your  mistress  say  ?  When  did  she  go  ?  Did  she 
leave  no  message  ?  " 

"  Not  with  me,  sir !  "  Then  officially :  "  Did  Mrs.  Challis  leave 
no  message,  Harmood?"  Which,  substituting  as  it  does  a  name 
for  an  offensive  designation,  confirms  and  ratifies  the  claim  to 
mediumship  made  by  the  speaker,  who  accordingly  repeats  the  sub- 
stance of  Miss  Harmood's  communication  from  above,  replacing 
the  offensive  designation  in  the  text  where  it  had  been  ignored  in 
the  original. 

"  The  mistress  didn't  leave  no  message,  sir,  only  a  note.  She 
was  taking  the  young  ladies  to  their  grandmamma's,  and  we  was 
not  to  expect  her  back." 

"  Where's  the  note  ?  .  .  .  Did  she  name  any  time  ? "  To  this 
Miss  Harmood,  overstepping  delicacy,  and  speaking,  as  it  were, 
with  the  direct  voice,  replies: 

"  Mrs.  Challis  said  no  time,  sir,  but  you  would  know.  She  took 
her  things  to  stay,  and  the  young  ladies,  and  went  about  three." 

"  About  three."  Mrs.  Steptoe  confirms,  adding :  "  The  note  is 
left  on  the  'all-table."  This  anticipates  the  question  on  Challis's 
lips,  and  also  reinstates  delicacy,  making  further  direct  com- 
munication unnecessary. 

Challis  says  abruptly,  "  You  had  better  get  back  to  bed,  both  of 
you !  "  and  goes  to  bring  the  lamp  from  the  bedroom.  He  sees  at 
once  that  he  had  overlooked  the  letter,  which  must  have  been  at 
the  bottom  of  the  handful  he  brought  up.  Of  course,  it  would  be, 
if  it  was  written  before  three.  All  those  later  letters  would  have 
hidden  it. 

Yes — there  it  was,  directed  to  "  Mr.  Challis  "  and  nothing  else. 
He  brought  to  the  surface  a  memory  of  having  noticed  it  at  first, 
and  thought  it  a  tradesman's  account  or  a  begging  application. 
Now  he  could  see  the  handwriting.  He  could  not  have  said 
whether  he  was  more  anxious  or  afraid  to  open  it.  Perhaps  the 
former,  so  great  was  his  wish  to  know  how  it  would  begin.  But  it 
had  no  definite  beginning,  such  as  letters  usually  have. 

"You  do  not  really  care  for  me,  so  I  have  made  up  my  mind 
to  leave  you — it  is  all  at  an  end  between  us,  for  you  do  not  really 
care  for  me — now  you  can  go  away  to  Miss  Arkroyd  if  she  will 
have  you — it  will  not  be  bigamy,  and  you  know  why — I  am  Kate's 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  463 

sister,  and  we  cannot  be  legally  Man  and  Wife — mamma  has  said 
so  all  along. 

"  Oh,  Titus,  how  could  you  show  that  letter — could  I  have  acted 
by  you  like  that? — to  show  it  to  that  woman  to  read  before  you — 
think  if  it  had  been  me — my  letter  showed  to  some  gentleman  you 
half  knew,  and  me  not  seen  it  first — oh,  Titus — but  it  is  good-bye. 

"  Besides,  I  know,  because  of  the  garden  all  by  yourselves — 
Charlotte  says  so." 

Challis  started  to  his  feet  as  he  read  these  words.  "  I  knew  it 
— I  knew  it !  "  he  cried  to  the  empty  air.  "  Oh,  damn  that  woman ! 
— with  all  my  heart  and  soul,  damn  that  woman !  "  He  added, 
without  circumlocution,  words  to  the  effect  that  if  ever  a  woman  of 
infamous  character  existed,  she  was  one.  It  seemed  to  soothe  him ; 
and  after  pacing  the  room  once  or  twice  with  the  letter  in  his  hand, 
he  came  back  to  the  lamp,  and  went  on  reading: 

"  Charlotte  says  so — only  it  is  only  the  sort  of  thing  I  mean — 
I  have  no  accusation  to  make — you  must  believe  what  I  say — it  is 
what  I  know  you  feel  I  go  by — and  I  think  most  women  would, 
too.  If  you  had  cared  for  me  you  COULD  not  have  done  it,  but 
though  you  have  behaved  so  to  me  I  shall  try  to  forgive  you,  though 
I  have  quite  made  up  my  mind  that  we  must  part. 

"Dear  Titus,  I  know  I  have  often  been  short-tempered,  but 
that  is  another  thing — now  good-bye. 

"Affectly.  yours, 

"MARIANNE  CRAIK." 

The  name  was  on  the  fourth  line  of  the  last  page,  though  a 
postscript  followed.  Challis  broke  out  impatiently  into  a  sort  of 
painful  half-laugh,  as  his  eye  caught  his  wife's  maiden  name. 
"  What  folly !  "  cried  he.  "  What  sheer,  unqualified  folly !  Polly 
Anne! — just  fancy!  Why — she  is  my  wife:  nothing  can  make  her 
anything  else."  And  then  he  went  on  to  the  postscript. 

"POSTSCRIPT. — I  have  taken  away  the  children,  because  they 
are  my  own.  You  can  ask  Mr.  Tillingfleet — because  he  told  me — 
I  suppose  a  lawyer  knows :  Here  the  writing  turned  side- 
ways, running  up  the  paper-edge :  "  It  is  no  use  your  coming  to 
see  me — my  mind  is  made  up."  Then  a  further  continuation, 
rather  illegible  on  the  paper-edge,  Challis  made  out  to  be :  "I  will 
not  say,  God  forgive  you,  because  you  do  not  believe  in  God." 


464  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Challis  sat  still  after  reading  this,  becoming  calmer,  and  think- 
ing. At  last  he  said :  "  It's  all  nonsense !  Polly  Anne  will  come 
back  fast  enough  when  I've  got  the  kids  back.  She  can't  keep 
them."  He  seemed  quite  satisfied  of  it. 

He  thought  he  should  not  sleep  if  he  went  to  bed.  But  he  did 
both,  and  was  a  sad  man  in  an  empty  house  when  he  awoke  late 
from  a  happy  oblivion,  and  slow  remembrance  came. 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

HOW  OHALLIS  COULDN'T  BELIEVE  MARIANNE  WAS  IN  EARNEST.  HOW 
HE  SOUGHT  HER  AND  FAILED.  THE  EYES  OF  HOLY  WRIT.  THE 
DISGRACEFUL  TRUTH.  DEAR  MISS  ARKROYD !  WHY  FIGHT  AGAINST 
INFLICTED  LIBERTY?  GLENVAIRLOCH  TO  LET 

"  WILL  Mrs.  Challis  be  back  to  lunch,  sir  ? "  Thus  Harmood 
the  respectful,  after  giving  a  certain  amount  of  attention  to  a 
series  of  concessions,  collectively  called  breakfast.  Her  mistress 
being  absent,  she  was  taking  advantage  of  Challis's  readiness  to 
submit  to  anything  rather  than  attend  to  the  domesticities.  Just 
like  his  fellow-males  elsewhere!  She  was  fortified  in  the  adoption 
of  this  course  by  the  reflection  that  she  had  given  warning.  And 
a  servant  who  has  given  warning  is  a  problem  not  to  be  solved  un- 
der the  most  subtle  definition  of  Existence  yet  formulated,  even  by 
Graubosch.  She  is  not  an  Abstract  Idea;  would  not  the  butcher's 
bill  diminish  in  that  case?  On  the  other  hand,  could  any  con- 
crete thing,  worthy  of  the  name,  do  so  much  in  the  way  of  leav- 
ing coal-scuttles  at  stair-feet,  or  its  black-leadin'  brush  in  the 
empty  grate ;  or  its  dust-pan  full  of  tea-leaves  for  when  it  should  be 
ready  to  begin  sweeping ;  or  the  windows  flaring  wide  open,  and  the 
door,  and  all  master's  papers  blowing  about? 

The  story  can't  settle  that  point  now,  nor  could  Challis.  It  was 
metaphysics,  and  Mr.  Brownrigg's  business.  All  the  victim  of 
Harmood's  qualified  entity  could  distinguish  was,  for  instance, 
that  the  table-cloth  was  grudgingly  disposed  so  as  to  cover  one- 
third  of  the  table  only.  Being  a  tablecloth  of  huge  bulk,  with  a 
court-train  at  each  corner,  it  refused,  when  quadrupled,  to  have 
anything  stood  on  without  tumbling  over;  notably  a  needlessly 
small  milk-jug,  evolved  from  some  obscure  corner  to  stint  master 
in  milk  with.  It  wouldn't  stand  only  you  held  it;  so,  of  course,  it 
just  slopped  over.  But,  of  course,  there  was  plenty  of  milk  in 
the  house,  and  the  incident  closed  with  Harmood  actually  bring- 
ing The  Milk  itself,  in  the  most  matronly  white  jug  that  ever  was 
seen,  that  seemed  to  have  thrown  its  whole  soul  into  stability,  like 
Noah's  wife  in  his  Ark,  who  can  be  stood  up  on  a  rough  carpet 
cattle  fall  sideways  on,  knocking  down  their  neighbours. 

Need  it  be  said  that  Challis's  observation  is  followed  in  all  this  ? 

465 


466  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

It  shows  a  state  of  mind  not  fully  alive  to  the  reality  of  his  posi- 
tion. He  was,  in  fact,  pooh-poohing  the  idea  that  Marianne's 
action  was  more  than  an  outburst  of  ill-temper,  the  result — he  ad- 
mitted this — of  a  perfectly  natural  resentment  under  the  circum- 
stances. Of  an  unjust  one — yes!  He  said  this  to  himself  again 
and  again,  but  never  exactly  located  the  injustice.  He  could 
perceive  that  this  resentment  was  due  to  gross  misapprehension  of 
the  facts  of  the  case,  but  he  cautiously  avoided  details  of  the 
misapprehension.  He  may  have  felt  misgivings  that  Marianne 
was  not  so  very  wrong,  after  all.  Women  can  decide  this;  no 
man's  verdict  has  any  weight  in  such  a  matter. 

He  attached  a  certain  value  to  Hannood's  concessions  of 
warmed-up  coffee,  and  eggs  which  were  a  caution  to  poachers.  He 
took  no  advantage  of  them,  or  very  little,  as  breakfast;  but  till 
they  were  finally  left  to  perish  of  cold  neglect,  he  could  postpone 
his  answer  to  the  question,  "  What's  to  be  done  next  ? "  However, 
it  would  have  to  be  answered  some  time.  A  cigar  in  the  garden 
would  help.  There  is  nothing  like  a  cigar  after  breakfast  to 
clear  one's  head.  But  first  he  must  answer  that  question  of  Har- 
mood's.  Would  Mrs.  Challis  and  the  young  ladies  be  back  to 
lunch  ? 

"  Just  ask  Mrs.  Steptoe  again  exactly  what  your  mistress  said," 
Challis  takes  a  pleasure  in  rubbing  in  the  obnoxious  expression. 
Harmood's  conduei/  has  been  detestable.  But  she  is  conscious, 
from  Mr.  Challis's  manner,  of  her  success.  From  Mrs.  Challis's 
she  had  been  able  to  form  no  opinion. 

Mrs.  Steptoe  testified  from  the  basement,  and  Harmood  returned. 
No — Mrs.  Challis  had  said  nothing  but  what  had  been  reported 
last  night.  She  was  taking  the  young  ladies  to  their  grandma's, 
and  we  was  not  to  expect  her  back. 

"Back  to  lunch,  or  what?"  Challis  raises  his  voice  over  the 
question,  and  Harmood  refers  to  her  authority,  with  an  air  of  in- 
difference to  trifles  of  this  sort.  Bald  confirmation  comes  of  the 
wording  of  the  message;  no  interpretation. 

"  Very  well,  then !  Your  mistress  didn't  say  she  wasn't  coming 
to  lunch.  Of  course  she  is  coming  to  lunch."  Challis  repulsed  an 
attempt  of  Mrs.  Steptoe  to  entangle  him  in  the  problem  of  how 
some  abhorrent  remainders  from  the  larder — which  she  offered  to 
show — might  be  best  utilized,  and  got  away  to  that  cigar  in  the 
garden,  to  think.  .  .  . 

Damn  interruptions! — no,  he  couldn't  see  anybody.  .  .  . 
Stop !  who  was  it  ?  Miss  Harmood,  who  had  not  been  explicit 
enough,  now  testified  to  Mr.  Eldridge;  whereupon  Challis  asked 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  467 

her  why  she  couldn't  say  so  at  first?  This  was  unjust  and  irra- 
tional; but  Miss  Harmood  had  given  warning,  and  felt  partly  dis- 
embodied. What  did  it  matter  to  her? 

It  was  John  Eldridge,  not  very  intelligible,  but  in  much  per- 
turbation at  something.  "  Well — you  see ! — it  was  Lotty's  idea 
he  should  come  round.  Never  would  have  entered  his  head  him- 
self !  No  eayin',  though ! "  This  was  a  favourite  expression  of 
his,  presenting  him  as  a  sage  prone  to  suspension  of  opinion,  and 
open-minded. 

After  using  it  once  or  twice,  he  used  his  pocket-handkerchief, 
causing  Harmood  to  inquire  whether  Mr.  Challis  had  called.  He 
then  stood  over  the  object  of  his  visit,  whatever  it  was,  to  ask,  as 
an  entirely  new  idea,  "  How  are  you  yourself,  Master  Titus  ? " 

"I'm  all  right,  John.  Won't  you  smoke? — that  one  at  the  end's 
very  mild."  But  Mr.  Eldridge  wouldn't  smoke ;  it  was  too  early  in 
the  morning.  Besides,  he  was  late  at  the  office.  Challis  avoided 
analysis  and  comparison,  and  made  essays  towards  explanation 
of  the  visit.  "  Any  more  railway  accidents  ?  "  said  he. 

"  Wasn't  that  the  day  before  yesterday  ?  "  Mr.  Eldridge  stopped 
polishing  his  nose  to  ask  this.  Challis  explained  that  it  was  quite 
recent  enough — he  was  in  no  hurry  for  mora  He  chose  to  suggest 
that  the  question,  which  had  absolutely  no  meaning  whatever,  was 
intended  to  impute  to  him  an  unnatural  lust  for  railway  accidents. 
Mr.  Eldridge  seemed  at  a  loss,  saying :  "  Now  you're  poking  fun, 
Master  Titus !  None  of  your  larks !  "  Then  he  muttered  to  him- 
self. "  Thought  so — thought  so — day  before  yesterday !  " 

It  was  evidently  going  to  be  a  matter  of  patience.  Challis  knew 
why  his  visitor  had  come,  of  course,  but  he  was  not  going  to  sup- 
ply him  with  guidance.  Perhaps  it  would  be  quickest  and  simplest 
to  leave  him  entirely  alone.  Then  he  would  have  to  burst,  or  go. 
He  chose  the  former,  after  some  vague  soliloquy  about  not  having 
inquests  on  Sundays. 

"  You  don't  object  to  my  lookin'  round  to  speak  about  it,  Mas- 
ter Titus?" 

"  Not  a  bit,  John !    Please  speak.    What  is  it  ? " 

A  gentle  reproachfulness  was  on  Mr.  Eldridge  as  he  answered: 
"  No — come,  I  say,  now — no  gammon,  suppose !  "  And  ChaMis 
really  commiserated  him.  What  a  position  to  be  in!  To  be  sent 
round  by  your  wife,  in  the  legitimate  exercise  of  her  omnipotence, 
to  lecture  a  neighbour  believed  to  be  involved  in  a  quarrel  with 
his!  And  that,  too,  when  you  happen  to  have,  from  no  fault 
of  your  own,  but  from  predestination,  a  short  supply  of  words, 
and  defective  powers  of  construction.  Challis  appreciated 


468  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  position  quite  clearly,  and  decided  to  be  good-natured.-  After 
all,  it  was  that  detestable  meddlesome  Charlotte,  not  her  booby 
husband  himself — most  probably — that  had  organized  this  expedi- 
tion into  his  territory. 

"  All  right,  John !  "  said  he.  "  No  gammon,  suppose !  7  know 
what  you  want  to  speak  about.  Marianne." 

"  Well,  you  know !  "  says  John  ruefully,  "  my  idear  was  Char- 
lotte should  come  herself.  Much  better  idear !  " 

"  What  for  ?    Very  happy  to  see  her,  of  course !  " 

"  Well,  you  know,  Master  Titus,  that's  just  what  I  keep  on 
sayin'  to  Charlotte,  that  it's  no  concern  of  either  of  ours." 

"  Sharp  chap ! "  This  is  interjected  privately.  So  far  as  it 
reaches  the  audience,  it  seems  to  be  accepted  as  laurels.  "  Now, 
suppose  you  and  Charlotte  were  to  take  a  holiday,  and  just  leave 
me  and  Marianne  to  fight  it  out  our  own  way.  We  shan't  quarrel." 

Mr.  Eldridge  became  snugly  confidential.  "  There,  now,  Master 
Titus,  isn't  that  exactly  what  I  said  to  Lotty?  The  very  words! 
'You  leave  them  to  fry  their  own  fish,'  I  said."  Challis  thought 
of  his  philosophical  friends  at  Eoyd ;  here  was  a  new  definition  of 
identity  wanted !  " '  You  leave  them  to  fry  their  own  fish.'  It's 
what  I've  been  sayin'  all  along.  But  when  females  get  an  idea, 
you  may  just  talk  to  'em.  Nothin'  comes  of  it.  ..." 

"  What  was  her  idea  ?  " 

"  Me  to  come  and  talk  it  over  in  a  friendly  sort  of  way.  Try 
to  pave  the  way  to  a  good  understanding.  .  .  .  Lots  of  ex- 
pressions she  used !  .  .  . "  He  paused  to  recall  some.  "...  Oh 
ah! — I  remember  .  .  .  'painful  misunderstanding' — that  was 
one.  And  '  tact  and  delicacy.'  She's  a  clever  woman,  Lotty,  that's 
a  fact,  Master  Titus." 

"Devilish  clever,  John!  Everyone  knows  that.  'Tact  and 
delicacy '  is  a  capital  expression.  It  reminds  me  of  Mrs.  Chapone, 
but  I  don't  know  why."  John  seemed  flattered,  and  Challis  con- 
tinued, with  some  disposition  to  laugh  outright :  "  Look  here,  old 
chap !  You  and  that  clever  lady  of  yours  may  just  as  well  be  easy. 
You  think  Polly  Anne  and  I  have  quarrelled.  But  we  haven't. 
And  we  shan't.  I  tell  you,  the  thing's  out  of  the  question.  Sheer 
nonsense ! " 

Mr.  Eldridge's  idea  of  identity  comes  to  the  fore  again.  "  Just 
what  I  said — '  reg'lar  tommy  rot.'  Mrs.  J.  E.,  she  agreed  with  me, 
down  to  the  ground.  There  was  another  expression  she  used,  now! 
.  .  .  what  the  dickens  was  it?  .  .  .  Oh,  I  know! — no,  I 
don't.  .  .  .  Oh  yes! — 'parties  God  had  joined  together  let  no 
man  put  asunder.'  Nice  feelin'  about  that!  " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  469 

"Well! — no  man's  going  to  put  anyone  asunder  this  time, 
whether  God  united  them  or  the  Devil.  Don't  you  go  and  repeat 
that  remark  to  Mrs.  J.  E.,  John." 

"  No — no,  Master  Titus !  Never  say  anything — never  say  a 
word! — that's  the  rule.  Never  say  the  Devil — never  say  God;  not 
before  females.  Keep  'em  snug!  Good  behaviour's  paramount 
— can't  be  too  particular !  Expression  of  my  wife's.  ...  I  say, 
I  must  be  runnin'." 

"  They'll  be  sending  for  you  from  the  Office  if  you  don't."  Then, 
as  his  visitor  was  departing  by  the  front  gate,  he  called  to  him 
from  the  house-steps :  "  Sorry  the  missis  and  the  kids  aren't  back. 
They  went  to  Tulse  Hill  yesterday.  I'm  going  down  there  pres- 
ently, only  I've  some  work  to  finish  first."  And  Harmood  over- 
heard, and  condemned  her  employer  for  his  contradictory  testi- 
mony. "  'Ark  at  him  lying ! "  was  the  candid  form  her  censure 
took.  Mrs.  Steptoe,  saying  a  word  in  arrest  of  judgment,  for  the 
pleasure  of  gainsaying  Harmood,  was  met  by  "  Now,  didn't  he 
say,  only  this  minute,  Mrs.  Challis  would  be  back  to  lunch?" 

The  question  whether,  when  Mr.  Challis  remained  to  lunch  at 
home,  as  though  he  expected  his  wife's  return,  and  immediately 
after  took  his  departure  for  Tulse  Hill,  he  had  not  reconciled  his 
apparently  conflicting  statements,  formed  the  subject  of  intem- 
perate controversy  between  Harmood  and  Mrs.  Steptoe  during  the 
remainder  of  the  afternoon. 

No  doubt  Challis  had  treasured  a  hope  in  his  heart  that  his  wife 
and  the  children  would  reappear.  He  succeeded,  to  his  own  satis- 
faction, in  pretending  he  had  known  they  wouldn't,  all  along; 
and  by  the  time  he  had  reached  Tulse  Hill  Station,  believed  he 
had  only  remained  to  lunch  at  Wimbledon  to  write  important 
letters. 

He  rang  more  than  once — two  or  three  times  more — at  his 
mother-in-law's,  without  any  response.  The  first  time  someone, 
he  thought,  looked  from  behind  the  blind  of  an  upper  window; 
and  then  two  voices,  one  dictatorial,  the  other  compliant,  conversed 
up  and  down  the  staircase  of  Glenvairloch,  for  that  was  the  name 
of  Marianne's  mother's  villa  at  Tulse  Hill.  The  next-door  neigh- 
bour lived  at  Bannochar. 

At  his  second  ring  he  suspected,  at  his  third  was  convinced, 
that  non-admission  was  a  parti-pris,  in  his  case,  at  Glenvairloch. 
The  dictatorial  voice  had  been,  not  Marianne's,  but  her  parent's, 
who,  probably,  had  also  been  the  scout  at  the  window.  If  the 
household  had  made  up  its  mind  not  to  admit  him,  what  could  he 


470  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

do?  A  scheme  for  burglarious  entry,  suggested  by  a  boy  at  large, 
in  the  hope  of  reward,  did  not  recommend  itself.  Even  this  boy 
asking  the  cook  next  door  to  let  him  through,  and  him  to  climb 
through  a  back-winder,  seemed  a  lawless  course  to  Challis's  mind. 
He  found,  too,  that  this  boy  caused  the  sudden  appearance  from 
space  of  other  boys,  and  that  as  they  agglutinated  round  him, 
passers-by,  apparently  cretins,  wanted  to  know  whether  it  was  a 
fire.  He  saw  no  alternative  but  to  give  it  up.  He  did  so,  resolv- 
ing to  return  next  day.  As  it  chanced,  some  pressing  appoint- 
ments made  the  day  after  more  convenient. 

This  time  he  went  early  in  the  morning,  hoping  to  effect  a  sur- 
prise. But  he  knew  quite  well  that  if  no  one  else  came  to  the 
door  whose  admission  was  de  rigueur,  he  was  practically  at  the 
mercy  of  the  garrison.  No  portcullis  need  be  lifted  unless  it 
chose. 

A  lucky  chance  befell,  in  the  shape  of  a  butcher-boy,  who  could 
not  well  leave  a  pound  of  steak  impaled  on  the  gate  rails,  nor  slip 
three  ounces  of  dripping  into  the  letter-box.  Taken  into  con- 
fidence by  Challis,  he  said :  "  They'll  come  along  for  me,  you  bet." 
He  knew  his  power,  this  butcher-boy;  but  he  yelled  as  well  as 
rang,  from  sweetness  of  disposition,  although  not  bound  to  yell  by 
contract.  Indeed,  he  also  shouted  an  exhortation :  "  Git  them 
stockin's  on,  Hemmer,  and  come  along!  Can't  wait  here  till  Sun- 
day!" 

But  Emma  was  really  up  and  dressed,  for  it  was  past  three 
o'clock.  She  took  in  the  meat,  and  said  she  would  ask,  please,  if 
Mrs.  Challis  was  in.  Challis  raised  no  objection,  but  walked  into 
the  house  beside  her,  for  all  that.  You  see,  he  was  one  of  the 
family,  however  seldom  he  visited  his  mother-in-law.  And  it  does 
not  come  into  practice  for  a  young  servant  to  repulse  an  applicant 
for  admission;  under  such  circumstances,  Emma  had  admitted 
Mr.  Challis  more  than  once.  How  could  she  turn  on  him  and 
say,  "You're  not  to  come  in  this  time"? 

He  had  never  been  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  house,  though  al- 
ways nominally — or  we  might  say  technically — welcome.  There 
had  been  little  open  warfare  between  him  and  its  occupant  since 
his  first  widowerhood,  when  his  scanty  attendances  at  Divine 
Service,  conceded  during  his  short  period  of  married  life,  to  keep 
the  peace,  were  discontinued  altogether.  His  perdition  had  then 
become  an  article  of  the  old  lady's  faith;  but  she  seemed  to  have 
decided  that  the  Fires  of  Hell  during  the  remainder  of  Eternity 
would  be  a  sufficient  penalty  for  her  son-in-law's  delinquencies, 
without  the  added  sting  of  incivility  from  herself  when  he  occa- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  471 

sionally  found  himself  under  her  roof.  Moreover,  Challis  had 
made  a  great  concession  in  surrendering  Bob  to  Marianne.  His 
way  of  describing  this  surrender  of  his  son  was  shockingly  blas- 
phemous; in  fact,  he  used  to  indulge  in  parallels  founded  on  recol- 
lections cf  his  own  short  church-going  experience  in  a  way  that 
would  have  estranged  his  second  wife  and  her  mother  for  ever 
from  him  had  their  information  on  the  details  of  their  own  faith 
been  equal  to  their  conviction  that  they  held  it.  As  it  was,  the 
impression  sometimes  produced  on  their  minds  by  Challis's  ir- 
reverent whimsicalities  was  that  there  must  be  the  raw  material 
of  Salvation  somewhere  in  a  person  capable  of  repeating  so  many 
correct  religious  phrases.  The  story  only  dwells  on  these  things 
now  because  Challis  did  so  as  he  sat  waiting  for  the  appearance  of 
his  mother-in-law,  and  wondering  what  form  her  indignation 
would  take. 

He  had  just  recollected  an  occasion  when,  after  a  visit  to  the 
old  lady,  he  had  said  to  his  wife :  "  Really,  Polly  Anne,  I  think 
I  produced  quite  a  devout  impression  on  grandmamma  to-day," 
and  her  unsuspicious  reply,  "I  thought  you  spoke  very  nicely, 
dear ! "  when  the  old  lady  herself  became  audible  in  the  lobby 
without,  mixing  an  asthmatic  cough  with  reprimands  to  the 
servant. 

"You  gurls!"  The  speaker  seemed  for  a  moment  almost  para- 
lyzed by  the  force  of  her  indignation  against  the  class  she  de- 
nounced. Then  it  burst  forth  in  almost  a  shout — "  WHY  couldn't- 
you-do-as-I-told-you-and-say-your-orders-were  .  .  .  ? "  and  so  on. 
But  the  very  vehemence  of  the  fusillade  that  followed  the  artillery 
was  suicidal,  for  the  cough  cut  short  what  might  almost  have  been 
printed  as  a  continuous  word.  Then  speech  got  a  turn  again,  on 
a  revised  line,  "  Why-can't-you-do-as-you're-TOLD  ? "  the  gunshot 
coming  this  time  as  a  wind-up.  Variations  followed,  to  the  same 
effect. 

Emma  the  gurl  seemed  of  a  timid  and  sensitive  nature,  prone 
to  dissolve  in  sobs  and  sniffs.  Her  defence,  Challis  gathered,  was 
that  he  had  walked  in  through  the  kitchen-door,  and  that  her 
troops  were  outflanked  by  such  an  unusual  move.  He  felt  the 
defence  was  good,  and  that  he  ought  to  help.  He  showed  him- 
self at  the  room-door. 

"  Don't  scold  Emma,  grandmamma,"  said  he.  "  It  was  no  fault 
of  hers.  If  she  had  given  me  your  message  fifty  times  over,  I 
should  have  come  in  just  the  same.  Where's  Marianne?" 

"  Be  good  enough  not  to  interfere  between  me  and  my  servants." 
She  had  a  proper  spirit,  this  old  lady,  and  it  was  shown  at  in- 


472  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tervals — short  ones.  As  she  mellowed  with  age,  these  intervals 
grew  shorter. 

"  Well ! — blow  Emma  up  if  you  like,  but  it  was  no  fault  of  here. 
Where's  Marianne  ? " 

"  Will  you  have  the  goodness  to  wait  till  I  have  done  with  this 
gurl?  " 

Challis  returned  into  the  drawing-room,  and  waited.  Emma — 
he  said  to  himself — was  catching  it  hot.  He  felt  in  his  pocket  to 
make  sure  of  half-a-crown,  as  a  solatium,  in  case  Emma  showed 
him  out. 

Nothing  lasts  for  ever.  "  Such  a  thing  again,  and  you  GO  !  "  was 
the  last  shot  from  the  old  lady's  citadel  at  the  servant.  And  her 
first  at  himself  was,  "Now  you!"  He  accepted  the  challenge. 

"Where  is  Marianne?"  But  an  attack  of  coughing  stopped  the 
old  woman's  reply;  and  when  it  subsided,  and  left  him  free  to  re- 
peat his  question,  he  re-worded  it,  "  Where  is  my  wife  ? " 

"My  daxighter  is  not  your  wife." 

"Very  well,  grandmamma,  let's  pretend  she  isn't.  Where  is 
your  daughter  ?  Where's  Marianne  ?  " 

"  What  do  you  want  with  her  ? "  The  speech  and  the  speaker  are 
sullen,  dogged,  and  in  deadly  earnest.  If  Challis  plays  any  impish 
tricks — and  he  isn't  taking  the  old  cat  seriously ;  witness  that  mali- 
cious twinkle  in  his  eye ! — there  will  be  an  explosion,  and  a  bad  one. 

"What  do  I  want  with  her?  Why,  of  course,  to  come  back 
and  live  in  Sin  with  me,  like  a  dutiful  wife.  Stop  a  bit,  though, 
grandmamma!  Perhaps  you  don't  know  about  Marianne's  letter 
•—the  letter  she  left  for  me  when  she  bolted  off  yesterday!  Do 
you,  or  don't  you?" 

"  I  refuse  to  be  catechized.  I  am  in  my  daughter's  confidence, 
and  I  know  exactly  what  she  has  written  and  what  she  has  not 
.written."  The  suggestion  was  that  Challis's  report  would  be  un- 
trustworthy. She  seemed  to  warm  to  her  subject.  "  Marianne 
has  told  me  everything,  and  she  has  my  fullest  concurrence  in  the 
step  she  has  taken." 

"  Then  I  suppose,"  says  Challis,  with  irritation,  for  the  old 
lady's  fangs  are  beginning  to  tell,  "that  you  are  giving  your 
'fullest  concurrence'  to  her  carrying  away  my  children?" 

The  inverted  commas  in  Challis's  voice  are  caught  at.  "  Yes — 
you  may  sneer,  and  you  may  repeat  my  words!  You  may  despise 
me,  Mr.  Alfred  Challis,  because  I  am  only  an  old  woman.  But  I 
tell  you  this,  and  you  can  believe  it  or  not,  as  you  like — that  in 
the  eyes  of  Holy  Writ  those  children  are  not  yours,  and  any 
lawyer  will  tell  you  they  are  not  yours." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  473 

"I  don't  see  how  more  than  one  lawyer  can  vouch  personally 
for  the  paternity  of  either  of  the  kids." 

"  I  don't  understand  you." 

"Never  mind!  Try  to  understand  this,  and  teii  my  wife:  that 
whether  the  children  are  mine  or  anyone  else's — even  the  most  re- 
spectable legal  firm's  in  the  City! — they  are  legally  mine,  and  I 
intend  to  have  them  back." 

"  You  know  as  well  as  I  do  that  they  are  not  legally  yours. 
You  "know  as  well  as  I  do  that  when  you  married  Kate's  sister 
you  were  committing  an  act  forbidden  in  Holy  Writ,  and  ex- 
pressly condemned  by  Our  Lord  Himself.  You  know  that  your 
children  are  illegitimate  children,  and  contrary  to  the  Act  of 
Parliament.  Do  not  pretend  you  are  ignorant  of  this,  Alfred 
Challis.  Be  truthful  for  once !  " 

"  I  suppose  my  copy  of  the  Bible  isn't  a  recent  edition ;  I  must 
get  one  brought  up  to  date.  Or  I  might  order  one  from  the  Times 
Book  Club.  .  .  .  Oh  no! — no  doubt  all  you  say  is  correct.  I 
shall  find  the  passage."  A  misunderstanding  occurred  here,  owing 
to  the  old  lady's  deafness.  An  image  generated  in  her  mind  had 
to  be  dispersed,  of  a  Club  of  Freethinkers  who  had  a  copy  of  the 
Scriptures,  certainly,  but  kept  it  in  the  passage,  reserving  the 
library  shelves  for  Mock  Litanies  and  the  like.  Challis's  tendency 
to  regard  the  whole  thing  as  a  joke  revived  somewhat  over  this. 
"  No,  no,  grandmamma,"  said  he,  with  something  like  a  laugh ; 
"no  one  has  had  anything  to  say  against  the  Book  Club,  so  far, 
on  the  score  of  Unsoundness.  You  misunderstood  me.  All  I 
meant  to  say  was  that  my  recollections  of  Holy  Writ  seem  to 
want  polishing  up.  No  doubt  you're  right!  But  the  notion  of 
Marianne  having  any  right  to  appropriate  my  children — our  chil- 
dren— why,  the  idea  is  simply  too  ridiculous  to  bear  speaking  of !  " 

"  You  can  ask  any  lawyer." 

"  What  lawyer  ever  told  you  such  rubbish  ? " 

"  Mr.  Tillingfleet." 

"  Mr.  Tillingfleet  deserves  to  be  struck  off  the  Rolls.  When  did 
Mr.  Tillingfleet  make  this  precious  statement  ? " 

"I  suppose  you  fancy  you  know  better  than  Mr.  Tillingfleet?" 

"When  did  he  tell  you  this?" 

"I  can  show  you  his  letter  if  you  like."  Letter  produced. 
Challis  muttered  that  he  didn't  want  to  see  it.  But  he  took  it, 
and  made  a  visible  parade  of  superficial  reading,  until  he  came  to 
the  end,  when  he  appeared  to  re-read  the  last  paragraph.  He 
then  went  back,  and  re-read  from  the  beginning,  half  aloud,  skip- 
ping words. 


474  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

" '  Dear  Madam  reply  to  your  esteemed  .  .  .  hm-hm  ...  re- 
gret must  repeat  advice  ...  re  matrimonial  status  .  .  .  hm- 
hm  ...  in  no  case  can  marriage  of  man  with  deceased  wife's 
sister  hold  good  in  law,  however  pledged  parties  hold  themselves 
.  .  .  hm-hm.  .  .  consequently  legal  dissolution  impossible  no 
legal  contract  existing  .  .  .  old  friend  of  late  Mr.  Craik  .  .  . 
excuse  .  .  .  delicate  position  ...  your  daughter  .  .  .  coun- 
sel moderation  .  .  .  jealousy  may  be  justified  .  .  .  may  be 
groundless.  .  .  .'  Sensible  chap,  Tillingfleet !" 

The  widow  of  the  late  Mr.  Craik  snorted.  "  He  was  my  hus- 
band's legal  adviser,"  said  she.  How  could  he  be  other  than  a 
sensible  chap  ? — said  the  snort.  "  Perhaps  you  will  be  kind  enough 
to  give  your  attention  to  what  he  says  about  Marianne's  chil- 
dren." 

"  About  our  children,  certainly ! "  Challis  continued,  reading 
more  distinctly.  " '  With  regard  to  your  other  question  as  to  the 
relative  claims  of  your  son-in-law  and  daughter  to  the  guardian- 
ship of  their  children,  I  am  personally  of  opinion  that  as  no  legal 
marriage  exists,  the  children  are  technically  illegitimate,  and  this 
technical  illegitimacy  would  bar  any  claim  to  guardianship  on  the 
part  of  Mr.  Challis.  How  far  any  claim  for  maintenance  could 
be  sustained  is  another  question,  Mrs.  Challis's  object  being,  as  I 
understand,  to  withdraw  the  children  entirely  from  their  father. 
On  the  justifiability  of  such  a  course  I  do  not  understand  that 
my  opinion  is  asked/  Sensible  fellow,  Tillingfleet ! "  said  the 
reader.  But  with  so  plain  a  meaning  that  his  hearer  caught  him 
up  sharply. 

"  What  do  you  mean  to  imply  ?  " 

"That  Mr.  Tillingfleet  thinks  you  and  Marianne  a  couple  of 
fools.  He  all  but  says  that  your  behaviour  is  unjustifiable,  in  his 
opinion.  ..." 

"  His  opinion  was  not  asked." 

"  So  he  says.    Hadn't  you  better  ask  him  ? " 

"Certainly  not.  He  does  not  know  how  you  have  behaved  to 
your  wife.  It  is  a  matter  of  which  she  alone  can  judge." 

"How  have  I  behaved  to  my  wife?" 

"You  know,  as  well  as  I  do." 

"  No  doubt,  and  a  great  deal  better.  But  you  don't  know  as  well 
as  I  do." 

"  I  do  not  wish  to  talk  any  further.  Have  you  anything  further 
to  say?" 

"I  wish  to  see  Marianne  and  the  children,  and  to  know  when 
they  are  coming  home." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  475 

"I  am  here  to  speak  for  Marianne.  She  refuses  to  see  you,  or 
to  give  up  her  children  to  you.  You  will  gain  nothing  by  re- 
maining here." 

"  Come,  grandmamma,  do  be  a  little  Christian-like,  and  help  to 
make  things  comfortable  again.  ..." 

"  Christian-like  indeed !     What  next?  " 

"  Perhaps  I  used  the  wrong  word.  Couldn't  you  manage  a  little 
Heathenism  for  once,  and  be  jolly?  At  any  rate,  grandmamma, 
tell  me  what  the  accusation  is.  The  worst  criminals  are  allowed 
to  hear  the  indictment."  Challis  was  just  a  shade  uncandid  in 
this,  because  he  believed  he  knew  the  worst  of  the  indictment.  But 
he  excused  his  conscience  on  the  score  of  his  right  to  any  means  of 
finding  out  whether  his  character,  sadly  soiled  by  that  unfortunate 
letter  business,  had  not  been  well  smudged  over  with  soot  by  Mrs. 
Eldridge  into  the  bargain. 

This  conversation  will  have  shown  that  grandmamma,  though 
she  had  achieved  a  narrow-mindedness  of  a  very  choice  quality, 
while  preserving  a  virgin  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  the  popular 
teaching,  or  perversion  of  teaching,  by  which  vernacular  bigotries 
are  usually  fostered  and  nourished,  was  by  no  means  a  stupid  per- 
son when  she  had  an  end  to  gain.  Whether  her  end  in  the  present 
case  was  the  final  separation  of  Marianne  from  her  husband  may 
be  questioned.  A  working  hypothesis  of  her  motives  might  be  that 
she  merely  wished  to  pay  her  son-in-law  out  for  the  slights  he  was 
always  heaping — as  she  knew,  while  she  could  not  understand  or 
answer  them — on  her  cherished  booth  in  Vanity  Fair.  Whatever 
her  ultimate  object,  she  was  unable  to  resist  the  opportunity  of 
hitting  hard  that  the  culprit's  application  to  hear  the  indictment 
afforded  her. 

"  What  the  accusation  is !  "  she  echoed  derisively.  "  Ask  your 
Miss  Judith  what  the  accusation  is.  Ask  her,  and  then  look  me 
in  the  face,  Mr.  Alfred  Challis !  "  The  old  lady  seemed  quite  vain 
of  this  formula  of  denunciation,  for  she  picked  up  the  missile  and 
reloaded  her  arbalast.  "  Ask  your  fashionable  friends — oh  yes ! — 
they  look  the  other  way,  no  doubt,  but  they  have  eyes  in  their 
heads,  and  can  see  for  all  that.  Ask  them,  and  then  look  me  in  the 
face,  Mr.  Alfred  Challis!  Ask  your  neighbours.  ..." 

"Mrs.  Charlotte  Eldridge?"  asked  Challis  sharply. 

"  No,  Alfred  Challis ! — not  Mrs.  Charlotte  Eldridge  only,  but  all 
the  neighbours — ask  them  all  I  Ask  them  to  say  what  they've 
seen.  ..."  But  the  good  lady  lost  the  luxury  of  her  climax  this 
time,  because  Challis  interrupted. 

"  Could  you  mention  any  responsible  householder  who  would  tell 


476  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

me  what  I  am  accused  of?  I  could  call  on  my  way  back."  Being 
thoroughly  angry  himself,  he  naturally  spoke  in  a  way  that  he 
knew  would  exasperate.  This  dry  kind  of  speech  was  like  a  red 
rag  to  a  bull  in  this  old  lady's  case.  Nothing  is  more  infuriating 
than  one's  adversary's  apparent  contentment  with  mere  words,  left 
alone  with  their  syntax,  to  shift  for  themselves.  It  makes  one 
so  conscious  of  one's  own  war-whoops,  and  one's  occasional 
faulty  expression  of  meaning,  during  attacks  of  uncontrolled 
anger. 

"I  am  prepared  for  any  evasion  and  prevarication  from  you, 
Alfred  Challis.  But  I  was  not  prepared — no,  I  was  not  prepared 
— for  such  an  unblushing  statement  that  you  are  kept  in  igno- 
rance. Have  I  not  told  you  plainly — have  I  not  told  you  repeatedly 
— that  this  Miss  Judith  Arkroyd  is  what  is  complained  of?  Have 
I  disguised  anything?  What  I  have  said  is  the  shameful,  dis- 
graceful truth.  The  TRUTH,  Alfred  Challis!  Down  on  your  knees 
and  acknowledge  it ! "  A  bouquet  of  vital  doctrines  essential  to 
salvation  hung  about  this;  the  attitude  of  kneeling  was  especially 
telling.  More  of  the  same  sort  followed. 

When  a  lull  came,  Challis  spoke.  "  Am  I  to  see  Marianne,  or 
am  I  not?"  said  he.  "I  am  convinced  she  is  here,  and  I  have 
a  right  to  see  her."  The  old  woman  kept  glum  silence,  and  he 
repeated  his  words.  Then  she  said:  "You  shall  not  see  her.  It 
is  no  use.  You  had  better  go."  He  then  said,  "  I  know  she  is 
here,  because  I  saw  her  blue  silk  sunshade  in  the  entry,"  and  left 
the  room,  as  though  to  verify  his  observation.  At  the  stair-foot 
he  paused,  and  called  aloud  to  his  wife:  "Polly  Anne,  Polly 
Anne !  Are  you  there  ? "  No  answer  came,  and  then  the  old 
woman  came  running  out,  quite  inarticulate  with  rage  and 
coughing. 

"Listen  to  me,"  said  he,  and  his  manner  stopped  her.  "I  am 
going.  But  you  will  do  well  to  pay  attention  to  what  I  am 
going  to  say  to  you.  If  you  repeat  any  impudent  falsehoods 
about  Miss  Arkroyd  or  any  other  lady — yes! — whether  you  make 
them  yourself  or  get  them  from  any  other  pigsty  or  gutter,  you 
will  place  yourself  within  reach  of  the  law.  You  had  better  talk 
to  Tillingfleet  about  it.  He  seems  a  sensible  chap.  At  any  rate, 
he  will  be  able  to  tell  you  that  people  have  been  ruined  before 
now  by  the  damages  they  have  had  to  pay  for  circulating  filthy 
slanders  without  foundation.  So  be  careful,  grandmamma! 
Good-night ! " 

He  had  been  so  self-restrained  up  to  the  moment  when  his  anger 
broke  out  in  speech  that  his  worthy  mother-in-law  was  taken  com- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  477 

pletely  aback  by  it.  She  remained  so  until  the  door  closed  behind 
him.  It  was  then  too  late  for  any  demonstration,  and  the  disap- 
pointed guardian  of  family  morals  fell  back  into  the  house 
gobbling  like  a  turkey-cock.  Challis  found  Emma  at  the  garden- 
gate,  and  gave  her  her  half-crown  of  consolation.  He  received 
the  impression  that  she  had  been  sent  out  with  orders  to  warn 
Martha  and  the  children  should  they  return,  and  head  them  off  in 
time  to  prevent  a  meeting.  He  was  afterwards  sorry  he  had  not 
entered  into  conversation  with  this  girl,  and  made  a  friend  of  her. 
But  the  truth  is  it  was  impossible  for  his  mind  to  receive  the  idea 
that  his  wife's  resolution  would  be  a  lasting  one;  and  he  felt  con- 
fident of  a  penitent  letter  in  a  day  or  two,  and  an  amende  honorable 
to  himself,  whether  he  deserved  one  or  not,  for  suspicions  which  he 
persisted  in  looking  at  as  false  per  se,  although  one  or  two  circum- 
stances, quite  outside  their  radius,  might  be  coaxed  into  court  by 
a  malicious  prosecution  to  testify  against  him.  Any  other  an- 
ticipation was  mere  nightmare. 

But  a  day  passed,  and  another,  and  many  postmen's  knocks,  each 
with  its  exasperation  of  hope  frustrated;  and  many  cabs,  that 
might  have  ended  in  the  voices  of  the  children  shouting  to  the  cab- 
man, by  permission,  which  gate  to  stop  at.  And  a  loneliness  in- 
describable, so  unlike  the  happy  empty  days  one  gets  for  work  now 
and  again  when  one's  housemates  troop  away  to  some  assured 
haven  elsewhere,  and  write  every  day,  if  it's  only  a  postcard.  How 
Challis  envied  the  splendid  self-absorption  of  our  old  friend  the 
cat!  How  he  envied  the  sound  of  a  happy  freedom  in  the 
chronic  controversy  of  the  kitchen;  always  the  same  controversy, 
but  possibly  on  various  subjects !  How  happy  the  tradesmen's  boys 
seemed ! — how  callous  to  the  smallness  of  the  orders ! 

Every  day  he  wrote  a  line  to  Marianne,  ignoring  all  that  had 
passed.  She  would  give  way  in  time.  If  he  persevered,  one  day 
she  would  be  unable  to  resist  the  temptation  to  reply;  it  would 
be  a  sort  of  hypnotic  suggestion,  mechanically  brought  about.  It 
was  on  the  day  after  his  last  visit  to  Tulse  Hill  that  he  made  up 
his  mind  to  try  whether  a  letter  to  Judith  would  not  procure  one 
from  her  that  would  do  some  good.  It  could  not  make  matters 
worse. 

Oh,  this  strangely  compounded  clay,  Man! — that  any  story 
should  have  to  tell  it!  But  it  is  true,  too.  This  Alfred  Challis, 
who,  face  to  face  with  such  grim  reality  of  wreck  at  home,  had  as 
good  as  escaped  from  subjection  to  the  witchcraft  that  had 
brought  it  about,  had  no  sooner  taken  up  his  pen  to  write  to  its 
author,  than  he  was  again  subject  to  the  experience  that  has  been 


178  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

spoken  of  as  the  soul-brush.  All  his  consciousness — which  was  in- 
tense— of  his  own  folly  could  not  prevent  him  attaching  a  special 
force  to  the  first  words  of  his  letter.  Surely  "  Dear  Miss  Arkroyd  " 
might  have  been  a  pure  formality,  just  as  much  as  "  Dear  Grand- 
mamma "  would  have  been  if  he  had  brought  himself  to  write  to 
that  veteran  practitioner  in  discord-brewing.  It  was  no  such 
thing.  A  magic  hung  about  the  three  words,  with  a  suggestion  in 
it  of  a  phrase  of  music,  or  a  whiff  of  burnt  incense.  The  image 
of  Judith  crept  back  promptly  into  his  mind  at  permission  given, 
suggesting  disloyalties  to  his  hope  that  Marianne  would  quarrel 
with  her  mamma,  and  take  a  reasonable  view  of  the  position — 
come  Hack  and  reinstate  life. 

Why,  in  Heaven's  name — he  half  asked  himself — if  it  was  to  be 
like  this,  if  Marianne  was  going  to  persist  in  her  unreasonable 
jealousy,  should  not  he  take  advantage  of  the  freedom  she  forced 
upon  him,  of  the  legal  pretext  of  an  irregular  marriage  that  as- 
sumed the  right  of  Law  and  Usage  to  cancel  a  promise  given  and 
taken  mutually,  believed  by  each  giver  to  come  from  the  heart  of 
the  other?  He  would  have  flung  from  him  angrily  any  suggestion 
of  an  advantage  to  come  to  himself  from  capping  to  a  dirty 
Orthodoxy — the  words  are  his,  not  the  story's — from  any  joining 
in  the  World's  dance;  any  acquiescence  in  the  mops  and  mows  of 
the  Performing  Classes;  any  obeisance  to  a  great  organization 
which — when  it  suited  him — he  chose  to  consider  a  mere  mechan- 
ism for  keeping  the  funds  up  and  the  fun  going,  and  the  distribu- 
tion among  the  sanctioned  of  unlimited  stars  and  garters  and 
loaves  and  fishes.  But  if  it  were  forced  upon  him  in  the  face  of 
his  persistent  repudiation  of  it,  if  the  other  contracting  party 
flaunted  it  in  his  face,  might  not  he  avail  himself  of  this  pretext? 
— use  a  disgraceful  shuffle  in  the  service  of  truth?  Was  he  not 
almost  in  honour  bound  to  do  so,  to  that  lady  from  whom  his 
evasive  declaration  of  passion  had  elicited  what  was  at  least  a 
strong  disclaimer  of  indifference  to  himself? 

But  Challis  only  half  asked  himself  these  questions,  because 
he  knew  the  answer.  He  knew  that  he  knew  the  difference  be- 
tween Right  and  Wrong,  and  he  knew  that  his  wife  had  Right  on 
her  side — not  much,  but  some — and  he  suspected  that  he  had 
Wrong  on  his — not  some,  but  much.  So  he  finished  his  letter  to 
Judith  and  posted  it. 

Judith  wrote  in  answer  to  Challis's  letter,  and  he  forwarded  an 
enclosure  it  contained,  addressed  to  his  wife.  It  was  returned  to 
him,  torn  in  three  or  four  pieces,  by  the  next  post.  He  joined 
it  up  and  read  it,  and  thought  it  the  most  sweet,  conciliatory, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  479 

angelic  human  document  he  had  ever  read.  But,  then,  he  was  a 
man! 

He  went  more  than  once  to  Tulse  Hill  after  this,  without  suc- 
ceeding in  seeing  Marianne.  The  third  time  he  found  the  house 
empty,  placed  in  the  hands  of  an  agent,  who  said  in  reply  to  all 
inquiries  that  his  instructions  were  limited  to  dealing  with  the 
house.  He  was,  he  said,  a  House-Agent.  But  he  would  under- 
take that  letters  should  be  forwarded.  He  evidently  enjoyed  be- 
ing civil,  so  satiated  was  he  with  the  offensiveness  of  his 
position. 

Mrs.  Eldridge  called  on  him  as  a  peacemaker,  having  in  tow  her 
husband,  who  winked  at  him  over  her  shoulder,  uninterpretably. 
He  said  to  her,  subduing  his  anger  well :  "  I  would  not  have  seen 
you,  Charlotte  Eldridge,  if  there  had  not  been  something  I  have 
been  wishing  to  say  to  you.  I  cannot  prove  it,  but  I  am  as  cer- 
tain of  it  as  that  I  stand  here  that  it  is  you  that  have  poisoned  my 
wife's  mind  against  me,  and  have  filled  it  with  every  sort  of  nasly 
misinterpretation  of  a  perfectly  innocent  friendship.  You  have 
known  absolutely  nothing  of  the  lady  whom  you  have  thought  fit  to 
malign  as  a  means  of  maligning  me.  .  .  .  No,  I  know  I  have 
no  means  of  knowing  that  you  have  ever  said  a  single  word  against 
her.  But  my  object  in  seeing  you  is  to  tell  you  that  I  am  con- 
vinced that  you  have.  I  am  convinced  that  Marianne  has  shown 
you  my  correspondence  without  any  warranty — and  for  that  she 
may  be  to  blame — and  that  you  have  read  into  it  meanings  she 
never  would  have  dreamed  of  ascribing  to  it,  left  to  herself.  I 
am,  in  short,  sure  that  it  is  you — you — you  at  the  bottom  of  all 
this  mischief,  and  I  tell  you  honestly  that  after  you  have  left  this 
door  I  shall  not  be  sorry  if  I  never  see  you  or  hear  of  you  again. 
Good-bye !  " 

Mrs.  Eldridge  had  thrown  in  denials;  and  when  her  husband, 
moved  to  eloquence,  had  interposed  with  "  Come,  I  say  now,  Mas- 
ter Titus,  ain't  '  nasty  misinterpretation '  coming  it  rather 
strong? "'  had  briefly  directed  him  to  be  quiet  till  he  was  spoken  to. 
She  had  then  placed  herself  on  oath,  offering  an  extemporized  so- 
lemnity if  called  on.  "  I  am  ready  to  go  down  on  my  knees  here 
and  now,  Alfred  Challis,  and  to  call  on  God,  who  will  one  day  be 
your  judge  and  mine,  to  bear  witness  that  this  is  a  cruel  falsehood! 
HE  knows" — here  she  threw  in  upper-case  type  freely — "that  all 
my  wish,  all  my  effort,  has  been  towards  conciliation  and 
peace.  ..." 

At  this  point  Challis  interrupted  her,  saying  curtly:  "Then 
your  efforts  have  not  been  very  successful.  I  do  not  see  that  we 


480  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

shall  gain  anything  by  talking  any  more  about  it.  Good-bye 
again ! "  This  occurred  before  the  exodus  from  Glenvairloch,  or 
Challis  might  have  been  less  unconciliatory,  with  an  eye  to  keeping 
open  a  possible  channel  of  communication  with  his  wife,  even 
though  it  would  involve  communication  with  a  woman  whom  he 
now  thoroughly  detested. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

THE  EMPTY  HERMITAGE.  A  COMPROMISE  ABOUT  BOB.  HOW  MRS.  STEP- 
TOE  HAD  NOTHING  TO  CONCEAL.  HOW  CINTILLA  CAUGHT  MR.  CHALLIS. 
CALYPSO'S  RUG  ISLAND.  GOOD-BYE!  PROMISE  NOT  TO  COME  TO 
BIARRITZ!  THE  SKEIN  WOUND 

THE  unhappy  author  hung  on  persistently  at  the  Hermitage, 
in  the  face  of  the  candid  neglect  of  every  duty  by  the  servant  who 
had  given  warning,  and  the  uncandid  pretences  of  Mrs.  Steptoe 
that,  in  the  absence  of  her  mistress,  which  she  treated  as  a  thing 
de  die  in  diem,  the  one  object  of  her  life,  deep-rooted  in  her  heart 
of  hearts,  was  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  her  master.  Her 
catering  took  the  form  so  common  in  the  British  household,  of  a 
joint  twice  a  week,  twice  re-incarnate  as  hash  and  mince,  and  a 
nice  little  bit  of  rump-steak  on  the  odd  day  out.  Her  potatoes 
were  hygrometric,  owing  to  their  being  the  wrong  sort — there  was 
great  latitude  for  physical  defect  in  that !  Her  other  vegetables — 
lettuce,  cabbage,  what  not! — had  all  lost  their  hearts,  whatever 
was  not  stalk  being  flamboyant  exfoliation.  Even  her  brockilo 
sprouts  were  diffuse,  and  her  cauliflowers  wept.  The  bread  was  al- 
ways second-hand — owing  to  the  price  of  flour,  said  the  baker's 
man,  and  he  knew — and  The  Cheese  was  an  affliction,  a  nightmare, 
which  was  supposed  to  be  American  or  Cheddar,  but  whose  days 
in  the  States  or  in  Somersetshire  were  long,  long  ago. 

Why  did  Challis  endure  it,  when  he  might  have  thrown  off  all 
disguise  and  lived  at  his  Club,  where  there  is  a  capital  library  to 
write  in,  which  nobody  ever  uses?  Simply  because  of  a  pleasant 
dream  he  flattered  his  mind  with,  of  a  cab  with  luggage  atop,  and 
a  sort  of  revised  Marianne  alighting,  and  the  voices  of  his  chil- 
dren. He  was  lying  low  for  the  fulfilment  of  this  dream,  with- 
out ever  saying  aloud  to  his  heart  that  it  was  a  possibility.  Or, 
rather,  he  was  fending  against  her  return  to  the  damper  of  an 
empty  house.  That  would  be  altogether  too  sickening. 

It  was  horribly  dreary  in  the  empty  house.  How  he  would 
have  rejoiced  to  hear  but  one  short  torrent  of  unruly  fury,  but  one 
complaining  whimper,  from  the  unrevised  Marianne  of  the  past! 
But  he  was  given  over  to  the  Silences  and  the  intermittent  sounds 
that  drive  them  home — the  tradesmen's  boys — the  postmen's 

481 


482  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

knocks.  This  could  not  last  for  ever,  though!  Bob  would  be 
back  from  school — was  overdue,  in  fact — and  then  he  would  keep 
watch  and  ward  in  his  father's  absence.  Challis  favoured  an 
image  in  his  mind  of  a  hospitable  Bob,  welcoming  his  revised  step- 
mother, and  risking  statements  about  his  father's  return  in 
fabulously  short  periods.  He  devised  a  plan  for  Bob  to  ring  him 
up  at  the  Club  from  the  call-station  at  East  Putney. 

He  had  a  bad  half -hour  when  Bob  did  return,  knowing  nothing, 
and  found  him  tte  sole  tenant  of  the  Hermitage.  He  thought  it 
best  to  take  his  J«nd  on  Mrs.  Steptoe's  security  of  indefinite  to- 
morrows, treat  the  matter  lightly,  and  assure  Bob  that  his  mater 
and  sisters  would  come  back  in  the  course  of  a  few  days.  Bob 
accepted  the  statement  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  didn't  know 
yet  that  his  phonograph,  reluctantly  forsaken  when  he  returned  to 
school,  had  not  suffered  from  neglect.  Presently  Challis  heard 
the  diseased  voice  of  the  hideous  instrument,  dwelling  on  the 
fascinations  of  a  yellow  girl;  and,  for  once,  felt  grateful  to  its  in- 
ventor. But  it  was  only  a  short  respite.  Bob  soon  suspected 
something  seriously  wrong,  and  had  to  be  told.  Not  the  whole! — 
that  was  impossible;  what  could  his  father  have  told  him?  But 
he  had  to  have  his  painful  experience  of  a  first  family  disruption, 
and  to  understand  that  the  sort  of  thing  that  might  happen  in 
other  chaps'  homes  was  also  possible  in  his  own. 

Challis,  who  was  still  writing  disheartened  letters  to  his  wife, 
addressing  them  through  the  Tulse  Hill  house-agency,  told  of 
Bob's  return,  and  earnestly  begged  her  to  make  it  possible  for  the 
boy  to  see  his  little  sisters  again.  He  received  an  answer,  reposted 
by  the  agent,  with  only  the  Tulse  Hill  postmark.  It  was  written 
by  her  mother,  and  contained  a  proposal  for  a  sort  of  truce  as  far 
as  Bob  was  concerned.  Subject  to  a  written  guarantee  that  he 
himself  would  keep  his  distance,  Bob  might  come.  Then  he  wrote 
earnestly  and  at  length,  dwelling  on  the  cruelty  of  his  wife's  mis- 
judgment  of  his  actions,  reproaching  her  with  meanly  taking  ad- 
vantage of  a  legal  pretext  to  deprive  him  of  his  children,  and  im- 
ploring her,  for  their  sake  and  his,  only  to  consent  to  one  inter- 
view. He  was  horribly  embarrassed  in  writing  this  letter  by  the 
unwritten  law — so  his  mind  named  it  as  he  wrote — which  dictates 
that  every  word  that  is  written  or  spoken  on  this  odious  subject 
of  men  and  women  must  be  an  equivocation  or  a  shuffle.  How 
could  he  formulate  a  phrase  that  would  convey  the  truth  to  Mari- 
anne; acknowledge  his  aberration,  and  define  its  extent,  without 
letting  loose  the  whole  gutter-brood  of  Charlotte  Eldridges  to 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  483 

point  the  finger  of  denunciation  at  him;  and,  worst  of  all,  to 
squirt  at  Judith,  skunk-wise,  and  run  away?  And  if  he  assumed 
what  so  many  would  be  ready  to  accept  as  a  sound  view,  that  an 
attack  of  amorous  intoxication  didn't  count,  and  denied  fully  and 
roundly  that  he  had  ever  been  guilty  of  any  transgression  at  all — 
why,  then,  in  the  first  place  it  would  be  a  lie,  in  the  second,  the 
troop  of  skunks  would  only  resort  to  another  secretion.  "You 
know,  dear,  a  man  always  holds  himself  bound  to  deny,  for  the 
woman's  sake."  It  was  characteristic  of  Challis  that  he  all  but 
heard  these  words  from  the  image  his  mind  made  of  Charlotte 
Eldridge  on  a  sofa,  shading  its  eyes  from  the  light  with  that  con- 
founded pretty  hand  of  hers.  "I  see  no  way  out  of  Charlotte 
Eldridge,"  said  he  in  despair.  He  ended  his  letter  by  an  ill- 
chosen  phrase,  which  put  his  head  in  the  lion's  mouth.  "  Is  a  man 
never  to  be  forgiven,"  it  said,  "because  he  is  momentarily  over- 
taken by  passion  for  a  lady  under  exceptional  circumstances?" 
Mrs.  Eldridge  made  her  teeth  meet  over  that  expression,  be  sure 
of  that! 

The  outcome  of  the  negotiations  that  followed  was  that  Bob 
spent  the  last  half  of  his  long  vacation  with  his  mater  and  sisters 
and  grandmamma  at  Broadstairs,  which  was  the  place  of  retire- 
ment chosen  by  the  last-named  lady,  to  be  out  of  her  son-in-law's 
way.  It  was  recognized  by  Mrs.  Steptoe  when  Master  Bob  said 
where  he  was  a-going. 

"Well,  now,  Master  Robert,  to  think  you  should  go  to  Broad- 
stairs  of  all  places  in  the  world !  That  near  Ramsgate  it  is !  " 

"  No,  it  isn't !  "  said  Bob.  "  It's  near  Margate.  I'm  right,  and 
you're  wrong."  But  a  compromise  was  effected  over  a  railway- 
map  in  Bradshaw,  very  much  tore  across. 

"  That  is  where  I  saw  your  dear  mamma,  Master  Robert,  afore 
ever  you  was  born  or  thought  of.  Ramsgate !  " 

The  amenities  of  controversy  were  not  Bob's  strong  point.  He 
gave  a  prolonged  shout  of  derision.  "  You  never  saw  my  dear 
mamma!  Why,  she  died  before  I  was  born!"  It  was  a  hastily 
constructed  sentence,  and  reflected  very  little  credit  on  Rugby. 
You  may  recall  Stony  Stratford,  and  the  way  some  person  suffered 
from  insect-bites  there? 

But  Mrs.  Steptoe  repeated  her  statement,  firmly  but  respectfully. 
Not  only  had  she  seen  Bob's  mamma,  but  his  papa.  "  Very  well, 
then,  I'll  tell  the  Governor,"  said  Bob,  and  kept  his  word  before 
he  took  his  departure,  two  days  later. 

"  What's  this  story  my  boy  has,  Mrs.  Steptoe,  about  your  seeing 
his  mother  and  me  at  Ramsgate?"  It  was  Sunday  morning,  and 


484  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Challis  was  pretending  to  look  at  a  series  of  volumes  known  as 
"  The  Books,"  in  each  of  which  a  string  of  misstatements  ap- 
peared, sanctioned  at  intervals  by  a  rubber  stamp.  Challis  made 
some  pretence  of  adding  up  a  total,  to  give  Mrs.  Steptoe  time,  and 
then  repeated  his  question.  "  Yes — Master  Bob.  About  Rams- 
gate.  Where  were  you?  I  can't  recollect  you."  His  mind  was 
seeking  some  younger  Mrs.  Steptoe  among  the  children  on  the 
sands,  far  away  from  her  lodging-house. 

"  You  hardly  would,  sir ! "  said  she.  "  I  was  attending  to  the 
house  where  you  was  visiting.  I  had  undertook  the  cooking  at  my 
aunt's  sister's — name  of  Cantrip.  ..." 

"  Can't  recollect  Cantrip." 

"  No,  sir,  not  likely !  But  perhaps  Hallock  ?  .  .  .  name  of 
lady  and  gentleman  stoppin'  the  season.  .  .  .  Coal-merchant, 
I  believe,  in  a  considerable  way  of  business."  This  to  keep  the 
whole  transaction  on  its  proper  level  in  Society. 

"  I  remember  Hallock,"  says  Challis,  reminiscent.  "  Man  lost 
his  hat  over  the  cliff!  .  .  .  Oh  yes — but  I  remember! — it  was 
his  house  we  dined  at.  ..." 

"That  was  the  occasion,  sir.  .  .  .  The  Baker  desired  me  to 
.say,  sir,  that  he  was  sorry,  but  it  should  not  occur  again.  ..." 

"Never  mind  the  Baker  now,  Mrs.  Steptoe.  Tell  me  about 
Mr.  Hallock.  I  can't  remember  you,  but  I  suppose  you  were 
there?" 

"Not  all  along,  but  in  and  out  of  the  room.  I  was  divided 
with  the  kitchen.  I  remember  the  young  lady  very  well."  Mrs. 
Steptoe  felt  it  would  be  safer  to  leave  the  young  lady's  name 
alone.  The  ground  was  shaky  under  her  feet  In  fact,  she  would 
rather  the  matter  should  never  have  come  to  Challis's  knowledge. 

His  perception  was  growing  of  the  oddity  of  Mrs.  Steptoe 
knowing  anything  about  it.  "  7  can't  understand,"  he  said.  "  That 
youngster  said  you  saw  his  mother.  How  came  you  to  know  the 
young  lady  was  .  .  .  how  came  you  to  connect  ..."  He 
hesitated  over  the  description  of  Kate.  To  say  "  the  lady  whom  I 
subsequently  married "  would  have  been  making  Mrs.  Steptoe 
too  much  of  a  family  confidante. 

Now,  that  good  woman  had  no  objection  to  being  of  importance, 
but  she  wanted  to  keep  safe,  first  and  foremost.  She  had  nothing 
to  confess  to  personally;  was,  in  fact,  blameless.  Why  not  simply 
tell  all  she  knew  ?  She  took  that  course,  telling  all  that  happened 
about  the  photograph;  but  suggesting  that  the  whole  occurrence 
had  been  slight,  trivial,  colloquial — rather  than  otherwise  hinting 
at  surprise  that  Mr.  Challis  had  known  nothing  about  it.  Why 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  485 

had  she  not  told  him?  He  made  the  inquiry,  but  interrupted  her 
disclaimer  of  any  locus  standi  in  the  matter,  with  an  admission 
that  he  had  asked  a  nonsensical  question.  Why  should  she  have 
done  anything  but  hold  her  tongue?  She  was  quite  an  outsider. 
Well! — leave  her  outside.  That  was  the  obvious  course. 

"  Thank  you,  Mrs.  Steptoe,"  said  Challis.  "  I  fancy  I  remember 
that  photograph.  .  .  .  Oh,  the  Baker! — yes!  Tell  him  to  be 
very  careful  that  it  doesn't  occur  again.  .  .  .  No,  nothing  else. 
That's  all ;  good-morning !  " 

But  his  face,  always  grave  now,  was  graver  than  ever  as  he 
hunted  through  the  photograph  albums  he  disinterred  from  the 
chiffonier  Charlotte  Eldridge  had  exploited  so  successfully,  and 
got  no  success  for  himself.  He  found  what  he  supposed  to  be  the 
spaces  these  Ramsgate  portraits  had  occupied,  but  nothing  in 
them.  They  were  two  or  three  sudden  blanks  in  a  well-packed 
book.  Marianne  had  taken  them  away. 

For  the  first  time  since  the  rupture  he  felt  undisguisedly  angry 
with  his  wife.  It  was  too  bad ! — what  had  he  done  that  she  should 
be  so  secretive  and  mistrustful?  Why  could  she  not  frankly  ask 
him  for  an  explanation?  After  all,  it  was  a  subject  he  would 
have  been  so  glad  she  should  be  in  his  confidence  about,  and  one 
he  had  only  kept  back  from  her  to  spare  her  a  needless  disquiet. 
To  get  absolution  for  himself  he  resumed  the  whole  story  of  his 
silence  and  its  reasons.  He  failed  to  see  how  differently  the  thing 
had  presented  itself  to  her. 

What  would  Kate  have  said  to  him — thought  of  him — if,  when 
he  first  came  to  her  mother's  house,  he  had  made  a  clean  breast  of 
the  whole  story  to  any  of  the  family!  As  long  as  she  kept  silence, 
surely  he  was  bound  to  do  so?  And  then,  when  Kate  was  in  her 
grave,  or  in  Heaven,  according  to  the  immediate  exigency  of 
speech-without-thought  among  believers  in  God-knows-what — all 
this  is  Challis's  language — when,  anyhow,  her  demise  had  qualified 
her  to  be  spoken  of  in  a  hushed  voice,  was  he  to  intrude  a  revela- 
tion of  a  transaction  that  would  have  been  at  least  out  of  keeping 
with  the  ideal  Marianne's  memory  had  made  of  a  beloved  and 
lamented  elder  sister?  Then,  as  time  went  on,  and  no  one  seemed 
a  penny  the  worse  that  the  whole  thing  should  be  forgotten,  the 
lock  that  shut  the  secret  in  got  rusty,  as  such  locks  do,  and  Challis 
felt  far  from  certain  that  he  could  turn  the  key  at  all,  if  he  tried. 

Besides,  for  this  last  five  years  there  had  been  another  cause  for 
silence.  Challis  had  not  been  entirely  without  tidings  of  the  man 
Keith  Home  in  his  subsequent  career.  He  had  identified  him — 
to  his  own  satisfaction,  at  least — with  the  central  figure  of  a 


486  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

hideous  story  told  to  him  by  a  gaol-chaplain,  an  observer  to  whom 
he  was  indebted  for  much  material  for  copy  of  a  most  popular 
sort.  This  particular  atrocity  was  unfit  for  publication,  even  in 
a  modern  novel,  and  made  Challis  feel  grateful  to  its  miserable 
perpetrator  for  what  would  otherwise  have  been  the  crowning  act 
in  a  series  of  betrayals.  He  sometimes  even  felt  uncertain  whether 
he  ought  not  to  feel  unreserved  thankfulness,  and  ascribe  credit 
to  him  for  what  may  have  been  the  only  noble  motive  of  his  life. 
He  had  endeavoured  to  trace  the  ex-convict,  but  without  success. 
Perhaps  the  way  in  which  Challis  regarded  this  man's  relation 
with  his  first  wife  and  himself  may  suggest  itself  from  the  gaol- 
chaplain's  having  laid  great  stress  on  the  interest  this  man  ex- 
cited in  his  colleague,  the  surgeon  of  the  gaol.  If  the  patching  up 
of  an  absolutely  rotten  profligate,  that  he  might  complete  a  term 
of  penal  servitude  and  return  to  his  sins,  was  a  thing  to  be  desired, 
then  that  surgeon  had  a  right  to  his  triumph.  That  does  not  come 
into  the  story.  But  those  who  have  given  any  attention  to  the 
pathology  of  disorders  incidental  to  the  ways  of  destroying  body 
and  soul  adopted  by  this  wretched  creature  will  be  able  to  under- 
stand why  every  year  that  added  to  Master  Bob's  stature,  and  in- 
creased his  impudence,  without  a  trace  of  any  visible  taint  of  con- 
stitution, was  one  more  nail  in  the  coffin  of  a  painful  misgiving, 
which  Challis  was  only  too  glad  should  never  have  been  shared  by 
the  mother  of  Bob's  sisters.  As  Marianne  never  came  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  ugly  story,  we  may  dismiss  it  finally,  having  only 
cited  it  because  it  appears  to  supply  a  justification  of  Challis's 
persistent  concealment  from  her  of  her  sister's  former  marriage. 

The  story  draws  a  long  breath  of  relief  as  it  returns  to  Bob,  who 
had  come  back  from  school  fuming  with  an  uncharitable  jealousy 
against  a  boy  named  Tillotson,  who  had  two  Camberwell  Beauties, 
while  Bob  had  only  one.  So  the  few  days  he  spent  at  home  were 
chiefly  employed  tearing  over  Wimbledon  Common  and  Richmond 
Park  with  a  butterfly-net  in  a  tropical  heat.  Then  he  ate  his 
dinner  too  fast,  and  rushed  away  to  his  phonograph,  at  whose  maw 
he  gloated  over  incidents  of  Love  and  Jealousy  in  the  plantations 
of  Louisiana.  As  his  father  allowed  him  to  do  exactly  what  he 
liked,  he  was  able  to  give  full  vent  to  his  devotion  to  this  pestilent 
abomination.  He  even  wound  it  up  to  stand  at  his  bed's  head  and 
soothe  his  first  sleep  with  "  Bill  Bailey." 

But  when  Bob  departed  for  Broadstairs,  the  desolation  was 
worse  than  ever.  Challis  met  it  boldly,  writing  persistently  all 
day,  and  spending  the  evening  at  his  Club.  He  was  rather  glad 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  487 

town  was  so  empty;  for,  indeed,  a  week  or  so  after  the  boy  said 
good-bye  to  his  governor,  hugging  him  as  a  French  or  Italian  boy 
would  have  done,  no  two  folk  who  met  seemed  ready  to  accept  each 
other  as  actual.  "  You  don't  mean  to  say  you're  here !  "  was  the 
commonest  greeting.  But  the  incredulity  of  each  gave  way  before 
the  other's  attestation  of  his  existence. 

Challis's  disbelief  in  the  presence  in  Grosvenor  Square  of  any 
of  The  Family  was  so  strong  that  he  had  no  misgivings  whatever 
on  the  point  when  he  knocked  at  the  door  with  drawn  cards  in  his 
hand,  and  set  phrases  of  inquiry  on  his  tongue.  He  felt  so  re- 
assured by  the  opacity  of  the  closed  windows,  parading  the  empti- 
ness of  the  mansion,  and  the  insouciance  of  the  nondescript  who 
looked  up  from  the  area  at  him  before  coming  to  the  door,  that  he 
never  doubted  that  his  visit  would  end  as  he  himself  at  any  rate 
believed  he  intended  it  to  do.  Was  he  glad  or  sorry — did  he  know 
himself? — when  a  light  step  caught  him  up  at  the  street-corner, 
and  a  musical  voice  said,  "  Oh,  please,  Mr.  Challis ! "  It  was 
Cintilla. 

Cintilla  and  Challis  had  always  been  on  the  most  familiar  terms, 
so  if  he  did  take  her  dimpled  chin  between  his  thumb  and  fore- 
finger before  saying,  "  Oh,  please  what,  Miss  Tenterden  ? "  the 
butcher's  boy  need  not  have  pretended  to  look  the  other  way  osten- 
tatiously. Tenterden,  by-the-bye,  was  the  little  maid's  real  name 
— Clemency  Tenterden. 

"Please  I  was  to  catch  you  and  bring  you  back  for  Miss 
Judith." 

"  You  don't  mean  that  Miss  Judith  is  in  town  ? " 

"  Oh  no! — not  really  in  town.  Why,  you  should  see  the  state 
the  house  is  in!  And  Mrs.  Protheroe  has  gone  to  her  brother 
James's  widow  at  Bridport"  Mrs.  Protheroe  was  the  house- 
keeper. 

"  We  won't  dispute  about  terms,  Miss  Tenterden.  I  gather  that 
Miss  Judith  is  not  technically  in  town.  I  suppose  she's  going  on 
somewhere — that's  it,  isn't  it  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes — and,  please,  it's  such  fun,  Mr.  Challis.  She's  going 
to  Biarritz  to  stay,  and  take  me,  and  I'm  to  learn  to  speak  French." 
Evidently  there  was  one  little  maid  in  this  world  having  a  high 
old  time,  and  determined  to  make  the  most  of  it. 

There  was  an  island  on  a  rug  in  the  back -parlour — the  sole 
outbreak  of  visible  furniture  in  a  wilderness  of  brown  holland, 
and  rolled-up  carpets,  and  chandeliers  in  bags,  and  pictures  whose 
backs  provoked  an  interest  none  had  ever  felt  in  their  faces. 
"  Like  some  females,"  thought  Challis,  as  he  picked  his  way  to  the 


488  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

island  through  the  debris.  On  the  island  was  its  Calypso,  the 
only  member  of  The  Family  in  town. 

Judith  was  as  beautiful  as  ever,  as  she  extended  both  hands  to 
him.  "  I'm  so  glad  the  child  caught  you,  Scroop,"  said  she.  Ab- 
solute self-possession! — Estrildis  herself  could  not  have  been  more 
collected.  "  But  I'm  sorry  for  things.  Now  sit  down  and  let  us 
talk  reasonably.  .  .  .  Yes — there ! "  This  was  to  Cintilla,  fix- 
ing a  nicely  chosen  distance  for  Challis,  neither  too  far  nor  too 
near.  Cintilla  would  have  liked  to  supply  a  chair  a  little  nearer; 
she  had  no  idea  of  people  being  so  artificial. 

Challis's  self-possession  was  far  from  absolute.  In  fact,  he  was 
tremulous.  "You  were  good  to  send  that  letter,"  he  said.  But 
the  last  word  sounded  like  "  letterm,"  as  he  checked  his  speech  short. 

"  You  were  going  to  say  '  Miss  Arkroyd,'  "  said  she.  "  At  least, 
do  not  let  us  be  prigs.  Call  me  Judith — at  least,  for  now." 

Could  it  matter,  either  way  ?  "  You  were  good  to  send  that  let- 
ter, Judith,"  he  repeated.  "  But,  as  I  told  you,  it  did  no  good — 
has  done  no  good."  For  he  had  written  as  much,  and  some  more, 
to  Royd.  But  his  pen  had  always  stopped  short  of  a  full  account 
of  his  desolation. 

"  I  suppose  we're  all  human,"  said  she  absently ;  and  the  remark 
seemed  to  want  application.  "  What  leads  you  to  suppose  she  will 
never  forgive  you?  What  she  says?"  Challis  shook  his  head. 
"Her  manner?  .  .  .  No ?— then  what ?" 

"You  don't  understand.  .  .  .  Well! — I  have  never  told  you, 
certainly.  Marianne  ...  I  have  never  succeeded  in  seeing  her. 
She  and  her  mother  have  gone  away  from  London,  and  in  order 
that  my  boy  may  not  be  separated  from  his  sisters,  I  have  been 
obliged  to  promise  not  to  follow  them."  He  explained  the  position 
more  fully. 

Judith  laughed,  and  Challis  heard  nothing  sinister  in  her 
laugh.  But,  then,  he  was  on  Calypso's  island. 

"You  are  too  soft-hearted,  Scroop.  Really,  you  must  forgive 
my  laughing !  But  you  are  so  very — Arcadian !  "  Challis  waited 
visibly  for  an  explanation.  "  Couldn't  you  see  that  what  this  dear 
good  woman  will  want,  when  she  gets  tired,  will  be  a  golden  bridge 
to  come  back  across?  Something  to  save  her  face!  She'll  never 
admit  she  was  wrong.  But  for  the  sake  of  the  children,  don't  you 
see  ?  We  are  in  the  region  of  high  unselfish  motive  at  once." 

Marianne  would  never  admit  she  was  wrong!  Very  likely;  but 
the  point  was,  was  she  wrong?  Challis  caught  himself  almost 
taking  sides  with  Penelope  against  Calypso.  The  point  was 
danger-point  in  these  seas.  Never  was  a  stranger  clash  in  a 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  489 

human  soul  than  the  one  Challis  was  conscious  of  when  he  half 
resented  the  tone  in  which  the  woman  he  had  a  passion  for  spoke 
of  the  one  for  whom  he  had  an  affection.  We  had  nearly  writ- 
ten "  the  one  whom  he  loved."  But  surely  he  loved  Judith  ? — or 
what  is  the  vocabulary  of  the  Poets  worth?  The  ambiguities  of 
language  have  been  beforehand  with  the  story,  and  it  cannot  stop 
to  preciser  them. 

"  Marianne  will  not  persist  a  moment  after  she  is  convinced  she 
is  wrong."  He  spoke  a  little  stiffly — almost  a  mild  censure  of 
Calypso.  But  as  a  set-off  he  took  for  granted  that  Penelope  was 
wrong,  past  contention. 

"Perhaps  I  should  have  said  she  will  never  believe  she  was 
wrong.  Better  than  '  admit.' "  This  was  spoken  with  placid  in- 
difference. One  might  have  thought  the  speaker  absorbed  in  the 
flashing  of  brilliants  on  the  beautiful  hand  she  was  holding  to 
catch  a  sunset-ray  from  the  back-window;  the  palm,  as  she  shifted 
it  about,  showing  each  finger  outlined  with  transmitted  rosy  light. 
Challis  tried  to  reason  away  its  witchery — to  quash  its  jurisdic- 
tion. But  it  was  a  fatal  hand.  "  Go  on  telling  me,"  said  its 
owner.  "  Tell  me  more  about  Marianne.  What  do  you  suppose 
she  thinks?" 

"  I  have  no  right  to  suppose  she  thinks  any  more  than  she  said 
in  her  letter.  I  told  you  in  my  letter  all  I  think  I  had  any  right 
to  repeat." 

"And  I  have  no  right  to  be  inquisitive.  But  the  letter  spoke 
plainly.  I  am  convinced  of  it." 

"  The  letter  was  indignant  with  me  for  showing  her  letter  to  you 
before,  as  she  supposed,  I  had  read  it  myself." 

"  Before,  as  she  supposed."  This  was  mere  repetition  of  the 
phrase,  as  a  writer  from  dictation  might  have  spoken.  She  turned 
her  eyes  full  on  him.  "  You  hadn't  read  it,  Scroop,"  she  said. 

"  I  had  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  at  the  time  I  showed  it  to  you." 
He  is  a  little  nettled,  and  she  sees  it.  He  embarks  on  self- 
justification — a  thing  one  should  never  do.  "  There  was  not  a 
single  word  in  what  I  supposed  the  letter  contained  that  you  might 
not  have  read.  My  statement  that  I  had  not  read  the  words  on  the 
back  was  entitled  to  some  consideration.  /  never  put  anything  of 
importance  away  in  a  postscript,  where  it  may  be  overlooked."  He 
stopped  abruptly,  feeling  irrelevant. 

"  Because  you  are  an  eminent  author !  We  mustn't  forget  that'* 
Judith's  laugh  lightened  the  conversation.  "No,  no,  Scroop!  you 
haven't  got  a  leg  to  stand  on,  and  you  had  better  admit  it.  You 
oughtn't  to  have  shown  me  the  letter." 


490  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"Very  well — admitted!  But  admit,  too,  that  I  have  made 
amends  as  far  as  I  could.  It  seems  to  me  that  a  mountain  has 
been  made  out  of  a  molehill  ..." 

Challis  stopped  suddenly,  very  ill  at  his  ease.  Judith,  with  a 
look  half  amused,  half  expectant,  waited.  She  evidently  was  not 
going  to  help.  Indeed,  she  would  not  have  found  it  easy.  Each 
knew  that  the  conversation  was  being  sustained  artificially  by  at- 
taching undue  weight  to  the  fact  that  Marianne's  sole  ground  of 
complaint  was  this  showing  of  her  letter.  Each  knew  how  much 
more  there  was  behind;  how  strong  Marianne's  indictment  might 
have  been  with  a  full  knowledge  of  the  facts.  After  all,  this  blam- 
ing her  for  unjust  action,  on  imperfect  data,  which  would  have 
been  just  had  the  whole  come  to  light,  was  the  merest  quibble,  and 
both  knew  it. 

Judith  broke  the  silence  first,  but  only  with  what  amounted  to  a 
declaration  that  she  would  not  help.  "  There  must  be  a  beauti- 
ful sunset  somewhere,"  was  all  it  came  to.  And  then  matters 
were  relieved  by  the  silvery  voice  of  Cintilla.  Might  she  take 
away  the  tea-things  ?  Yes — she  might.  While  she  did  so,  the  talk 
turned  on  the  legal  question  of  Marianne's  right  to  capture  the 
children.  Challis  had,  he  said,  consulted  more  than  one  legal 
friend  on  the  subject,  and  they  were  all  in  a  tale.  The  children 
were  illegitimate,  and  therefore  belonged  to  their  mother.  He  got 
some  satisfaction,  evidently,  from  shredding  a  conspicuous  ab- 
surdity of  human  law — why  should  children  be  claimable  at  all  by 
a  father  who  was  a  mere  predecessor  et  praterea  nihil — just  a 
parent?  He  himself  had  made  his  title  good  to  these  two  kids  by 
his  share  in  fostering  them.  Had  his  claim  been  a  legal  one  only, 
he  would  have  foregone  it  to  make  way  for  that  of  their  natural 
owner.  But  he  touched  the  matter  very  lightly.  It  did  not  out- 
last the  removal  of  the  tea-things. 

Then  Judith,  going  to  the  window,  stood  looking  out,  watching 
the  light  die  from  a  cloud  whose  under  side  had  broken  into  ridges 
of  rosy  flame.  Its  last  ridge  no  longer  saw  the  sun,  when  she 
turned  slowly,  coming  back  to  a  seat  nearer  Challis  than  the  one 
she  had  occupied. 

"  This  will  be  good-bye,"  she  said.  "  I  am  going  to  Biarritz, 
and  shall  be  away  till  January  certainly.  I  did  not  want  to  go 
without  seeing  you  again.  So  I  was  glad  when  the  child  came 
running  up  to  say  it  was  you,  and  shouldn't  she  catch  you? "  Her 
speech  was  redolent  of  self-command ;  no  concessions  to  the  pathos 
of  parting. 

"May  I  write  to  you?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  491 

"I  was  going  to  ask  you  to  do  so.  I  shall  hope  to  hear  that 
your  home  is  happy  again,  and  that  all  goes  well.  This  sort  of 
thing  has  happened  before — oh  dear,  how  often !  " 

As  Challis  sat  during  the  short  silence  that  followed,  not  looking 
at  all  at  his  companion,  one  might  almost  have  fancied  that  he 
shrank  away  from  her,  as  one  afraid.  He  found  a  voice  to  an- 
swer her,  but  not  easily. 

"I  will  write,"  he  said.  "And,  believe  me,  Judith,  in  what  I 
am  going  to  say  now  I  am  speaking  truth.  I  look  with  hope  to  the 
softening  of  my  poor  wife's  heart,  to  the  sound  of  her  return  to  my 
empty  home,  and  the  voices  of  my  babies.  ..." 

"  Why  should  you  suppose  I  doubt  you  ?     Of  course  you  do !  " 

"Yes,  but,  dearest! — I  must  call  you  so,  or  call  you  something 
with  some  heart  in  it;  pardon  me! — can  I  tell  the  reason?  Can  the 
reason  be  told?  .  .  .  Oh  yes,  of  course,  I  know  what  you  are  go- 
ing to  say — it  is  reason  enough  that  she  is  my  wife,  that  the  kids 
are  my  kids,  that  the  home  is  my  home.  So  it  is;  but  there  is 
more  reason  than  that,  and  I  am  at  a  loss  to  tell  it.  ...  What  ?  " 

But  Judith  left  whatever  it  was  unsaid,  and  exchanged  it  for 
"  No— go  on !  " 

"  Perhaps  I  do  wrong  when  I  use  the  only  words  I  can  find  when 
I  say  that  I  long  for  Marianne  back  again  to  help  me  against 
you?  Ought  I  not  to  say  to  help  me  against  myself?  Where  is 
the  fault  in  you  that  you  are  what  you  are?  You  are  blameless, 
at  least.  It  is  I  that  must  needs  love  you !  " 

And  perhaps  the  story  does  wrong  to  allow  a  suspicion  that,  in 
the  heart  that  beautiful  face  belonged  to,  was  a  half-formed 
thought  that  the  speaker  was  even  more  Arcadian  than  the  owner 
of  both  had  suspected.  But  it  creeps  in — this  suspicion — with  the 
telling  of  a  smile  kept  under  by  lips  on  the  watch  to  check  it.  One 
thing  may  bo  relied  on :  Miss  Arkroyd  was  not  the  least  agitated. 

Challis  saw  nothing  of  her  face,  as  he  never  raised  his  eyes,  and 
his  face  was  half  averted.  He  continued :  "  I  cannot  help  an  ex- 
perience that  no  one  will  believe.  I  have  no  appeal  against  it. 
But  I  tell  you  this — that  when  I  came  home  after  .  .  .  after  that 
evening  at  Royd,  when  I  forgot  myself  and  told  the  truth,  for  a 
few  hours  I  forgot  you  too.  As  I  sit  here  now,  it  seems  to  me  a 
thing  absolutely  incredible.  Even  when  Marianne  turned  against 
me  on  grounds  that  seemed  to  me  almost  a  pretext,  no  memory  of 
you  or  my  folly — call  it  so  if  you  will — anything  you  like! — no 
memory  came  back  to  me.  Indeed,  it  is  almost  as  though  I  had 
been  two  men  by  turns."  He  raised  his  eyes  to  hers,  with  a  slowly 
drawn  breath,  as  of  fatigue,  from  the  turmoil  of  his  own  feelings. 


492  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

If  there  was  any  of  the  smile  left  then,  she  was  in  time  to  can- 
cel it. 

But  she  hardly  said  anything.  A  mere  run  of  the  vowels  of  a 
sentence,  as  one  speaks  through  a  yawn,  is  not  speech.  It  just  made 
him  say  "  What  ? "  but  evidently  had  no  share  in  the  question  she 
replied  to  him  with,  and  stopped  in  the  middle  of,  "And  what 
was  it  then  made  you?  ..."  But  the  words  she  had  decided  on 
ignoring  were  "  How  funny  men  are ! "  Let  us  hope  there  was 
some  affectation  of  indifference  in  this. 

Challis  understood  her  question.  "What  made  my  disorder 
break  out  again?"  he  repeated.  "I  can't  fix  the  time.  But  now 
that  I  have  been  forced  to  discard  one  of  my  selves — the  one  that 
hoped  for  the  calm  of  his  old  home  life  again  .  .  .  no,  Judith,  in- 
deed there  have  been  many  happy  times.  ..." 

"Why?    Did  you  think  I  doubted  it?" 

"  I  wasn't  sure.  .  .  .  But  I  had  not  finished.  Now  that  my 
hope  has  been  simply  strangled,  I  have  to  be  my  other  self,  in  self- 
defence.  I  tell  you — I  must  tell  you — that  the  thought  of  you  is 
with  me  every  hour  of  the  day,  and  what  have  I  to  help  me  to 
fight  against  it?  Even  my  boy  is  away,  and  what  adds  to  the 
cruelty  of  the  position  is  that,  will  I  nill  I,  I  have  to  feel  glad  of 
his  absence.  Because  when  he  was  with  me  I  was  in  constant 
terror  of  being  asked  for  explanations  which  I  could  not  give.  A 
girl  of  his  age  would  have  been  far  easier  to  tell  it  to." 

"  Do  you  think  so  ?  I  feel  as  if  I  could  tell  him  about  it  all — 
much,  much  easier ! "  During  some  chat  over  the  fact,  and  its 
strangeness,  that  the  tongue  of  either  sex  is  freest  in  speech  with 
its  opposite,  on  this  one  particular  subject  of  Love,  Challis  felt, 
as  they  sat  on  in  the  growing  twilight,  that  the  soul-brush  was  at 
work  again  with  a  vengeance.  The  utter  satisfaction  of  his  thirst 
for  speech  about  himself  and  his  plight  was  so  much  sheer 
nectar  to  him  while  it  lasted.  If  he  paid  for  it  after,  at  least  his 
draught  should  be  a  deep  one  now.  He  confessed  to  the  extent  to 
which  his  constant  home-life  in  the  past  had  stood  in  the  way  of 
the  formation  of  intimate  friendships,  and  that  he  really  had  no 
one  he  could  confide  in.  "  I  have  a  second  cousin,"  said  he — he 
was  always  absurd,  sooner  or  later — "  who  has  an  impediment  and 
a  wig,  and  is  slightly  deaf.  No,  I  really  could  not  take  him  into 
my  confidence."  Judith  said:  "Of  course  you  couldn't;  I  see 
that."  "Besides,"  he  continued,  "he  wears  spats,  and  goes 
through  courses  of  treatment  for  dyspepsia  at  Cheltenham."  And 
Judith  said  again :  "  I  see." 

"The  only  man  I  have  spoken  to  about  it,"  continued  Challis, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  493 

"is  Athelstan  Taylor.  Well,  I  suppose  he's  about  the  only  man 
I  know  that  I  could  speak  to.  You  know  he  came  to  see  me 
straight  away.  You  told  him?" 

"  Yes,  I  told  him.  I  showed  him  my  letter — the  one  I  wrote  to 
your  wife.  He  said  I  could  not  possibly  write  a  better  one.  And 
she  tore  it  up  and  sent  it  back?" 

"  She  did.  You  know  he  went  to  try  and  see  her,  and  only  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  at  the  old  hag,  her  mother.  I  had  built  on  his 
being  a  parson — thought  it  might  be  some  use  for  once.  But  I 
suppose  he  was  the  wrong  sort  somehow — out  of  the  wrong  cuvee." 

"  Did  he  give  offence  over  the — the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  ques- 
tion?" 

"  Why,  yes !  The  hag  said  he  ought  to  be  unfrocked  for  saying 
he  didn't  care  a  straw  about  the  legal  question,  and  only  wanted  to 
clear  up  what  seemed  a  painful  misunderstanding.  The  cloth  fell 
through,  and  the  old  body  drove  him  out  with  religious  hoots." 

"There's  a  thing  you  won't  mind  my  asking?  ..." 

"Go  on!" 

"  People  are  saying — political  people — that  the  Bill  will  pass  the 
Lords  next  summer,  and  that  then  all  past  marriages  of  the  sort 
will  be  legalized,  because  it  will  be  retrospective — I  believe  that's 
the  proper  word.  Suppose  it  passes,  what  shall  you  do  then  ? " 

"  Get  the  kids  back,  of  course !  And  then  Polly  Anne  will  come 
to  her  senses.  But  she  will — she  will,  you  know — before  that." 

"  Suppose  she  laid  claim  to  having  annulled  her  marriage, 
while  she  still  had  a  legal  right  to  do  so  ? " 

"  It  wouldn't  be  allowed.  She's  a  woman.  Women's  claims 
ase  not  allowed  in  law-courts.  It's  heads  Law  wins,  tails  they 
lose  .  .  .  Yes! — I  should  stoop  to  take  advantage  of  it  in  this 
case." 

"  Perhaps  you  would  be  right,  this  once.  We  must  hope  it  will 
pass." 

"I  do  hope  it — with  most  of  my  heart.  Do  you  believe  me? 
Can  you  believe  me,  in  the  face  of  what  I  have  said  to  you '? n 
For  Challis  knew  quite  well  that  this  profession  of  a  hope  was  only 
what  he  knew  he  would  be  able  to  say  when  the  soul-brush  stopped, 
and  that  he  said  it  now  mechanically.  Wait  till  he  was  off 
Calypso's  island! 

Judith  left  his  question  unanswered;  put  it  aside,  rather.  "I 
suppose  you  know  it's  all  settled  about  Frank  and  Sibyl?"  she 
said.  Oh  yes — Challis  knew.  When  would  it  be?  As  soon  after 
Christmas  as  possible,  Judith  supposed.  An  interruption — Cin- 
tilla  with  a  letter — was  not  unwelcome.  But  she  needn't  light  up ; 


494  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

when  Mr.  Challis  was  gone  would  do.  "  That  was  a  broad  hint, 
Scroop,"  said  Calypso,  lying  back  in  her  chair  with  the  unopened 
letter  in  that  destructive  hand  fallen  idly  on  her  lap. 

But  in  a  few  moments,  when  he  took  the  hint  and  made  a  move 
towards  departure,  she  rose.  And  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  she 
went  quite  as  near  a  good  stretch  and  a  shake  as  such  high  breeding 
as  hers  could  allow  itself.  It  did  not  matter;  her  grace  and  beauty, 
perhaps  her  dressmaker,  negatived  the  action.  That  bodice  was 
perfect  in  cut.  "  You  know,  Scroop,  that  this  is  good-bye  ? "  she 
said.  And  then  in  reply  to  his  assent :  "  We  won't  be  mawkish 
over  it,  please!  I  want  you  to  make  me  a  promise,  and  keep 
it.  ...  Well,  yes ! — I'll  tell  you  what  it  is.  It  would  hardly  be 
fair  to  make  you  promise  in  the  dark.  Promise  not  to  come  to 
Biarritz ! "  Challis  hesitated,  but  promised.  Judith  laughed. 
"I  was  right,  you  see,"  she  said.  "You  would  have  asked  about 
trains  at  Cook's  to-morrow." 

There  they  stood,  in  the  half -dark!  Was  Calypso  saying  to 
herself :  "  Now,  can  I  trust  this  man  to  break  his  promise  ? "  Was 
Challis  asking  himself,  did  she  mean  him  to  keep  it? 

In  the  end  she  spoke  first,  with  a  sudden  movement  that  implied 
an  end  to  disguise.  "  Oh,  dear,  how  silly  one  is !  Why  should  we 
not  speak  plain?  After  all,  we  are  alive,  and  grown  up."  Yet 
it  seemed  difficult,  too,  and  came  with  an  effort.  "  Listen  to  me, 
Scroop,  and  don't  try  to  say  things — because  it  does  no  good. 
You  and  I  have  to  say  good-bye,  and  mean  it.  We  are  best  apart, 
for  both  our  sakes.  You  as  good  as  said  but  now  that  you  would 
forget  me  if  Marianne  would  help.  That  is  what  it  came  to ;  don't 
deny  it !  "  Challis  felt  that  his  attempt  to  lay  his  soul  bare  had 
failed;  that  he  was  being  misinterpreted.  But  he  had  a  poor  case; 
silence  was  safest.  She  continued :  "  It  is  not  as  if  I  were  pre- 
pared to  quarrel  with  my  family  for  your  sake.  I  certainly  would 
not  for  anyone  else's,  if  that  is  any  satisfaction  to  you.  But  sup- 
pose I  were,  have  you  aslcted  yourself  what  course  would  be  open 
to  us?  .  .  .  Oh  yes! — I  am  talking  like  a  lawyer;  but  a  woman 
has  to  be  practical  when  her  life  is  at  stake.  .  .  .  Well! — what 
could  you  do  ?  Ignore  your  marriage,  under  the  false  warranty  of 
a  law  we  both  disallow,  and  make  a  sort  of  Gretna  Green  business 
of  it  next  spring?  ..." 

"Why  next  spring?    I  don't  see  how  the  time  comes  in." 

"Foolish  man!  You  haven't  thought  the  matter  out.  Just 
think  of  it  now.  Suppose  that  Bill  were  to  pass  next  session — or 
next  whatever  it  is — while  we  are  arranging  this  escapade?  .  .  . 
what  would  you  do  then,  please  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  495 

"  I  can't  look  at  it  in  that — concrete  way." 

"Because  it  puts  you  in  a  fix."  She  had  a  half-hearted  laugh 
for  man's  superior  wisdom,  with  his  eyes  closed  to  all  practical 
issues.  Then  her  voice  got  a  sudden  tone.  "  Come,  we  must  part, 
you  and  I!  There  is  nothing  else  for  it.  It  is  all  nonsense 
about  your  wife.  She  will  come  to  her  senses.  She  will  have  to, 
if  the  Bill  passes." 

"  I  should  not  try  to  compel  her  against  her  will." 

"  Are  you  sure  ?  Might  it  not  be  your  duty  to  the  chil- 
dren? .  .  .  Now,  don't  let's  talk  about  it  any  more.  It  must 
come  to  good-bye  in  the  end.  ..."  Her  words  hung  fire,  but 
she  kept  her  self-control  admirably;  no  one  could  have  called  her 
excited,  much  less  hysterical.  Then  she  said,  in  a  quick,  subdued 
voice :  "  I  shall  always  think  of  our  good  time — before  all  this — 
as  one  of  the  happiest  times  of  my  life.  Now  good-bye ! " 

Why  could  the  man  not  shake  hands  and  go,  without  more  ado? 
Of  course,  that  would  have  been  the  correct  form — left  his  cards — 
sent  his  compliments  to  The  Family — bon  voyage! — all  that  sort 
of  thing!  Well! — perhaps  the  woman  did  not  mean  him  to. 

What  happened  was  this — that  is,  this  is  all  the  story  needs :  that 
Judith  repeated  decisively,  "  Good-bye ! "  and  Challis  said  never 
a  word.  But  he  had  her  hands  in  his,  and  it  was  some  slight 
emphasis  in  his  clasp,  or  some  little  turn  a  bystander  would  not 
have  seen,  from  which  she  shrank  back,  saying :  "  No — or  listen ! 
Promise  me  again  you  will  not  come  to  Biarritz."  To  which  he 
replied:  "I  promise."  Then  she  said:  "Very  well,  then — on 
those  terms  say  good-bye  how  you  like." 

Then  it  was  that  Challis  made  matters  ten  times  worse,  ten 
times  harder  to  deal  with  in  that  period  of  his  life  that  followed. 
It  is  a  curious  thing  that  one  good  long  kiss — a  transaction  that 
when  in  a  frolic  has  absolutely  no  meaning  whatever — should  ac- 
quire from  its  concomitants  a  force  to  cling  about  the  memory,  and 
in  a  sense  to  warp  the  understanding,  of  its  executant — the  only 
word  we  can  find  at  a  short  notice.  It  did,  in  this  case,  and  pos- 
sibly Calypso  meant  it  should  do  so  all  along — administered  her 
little  dose  of  nectar  with  a  full  knowledge  of  its  powers  as  an  in- 
toxicant. Indeed,  if  Miss  Arkroyd  had  it  in  her  heart  through  all 
this  last  interview  to  complete  the  winding  of  that  skein  she  began 
a  twelvemonth  back,  she  could  scarcely  have  handled  the  thread 
more  cleverly. 

It  is  not  for  this  story  to  decide  what  the  young  lady  had  in  her 
heart.  For  all  it  knows,  she  may  have  felt  either  triumphant,  dis- 
gusted, or  indifferent,  when  she  saw  the  name  of  Mr.  Alfred  Challis 


496  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  author — "  Titus  Scroop  "  in  a  parenthesis — in  the  list  of  re- 
cent arrivals  at  Biarritz,  and  did  not  mention  the  fact  to  her  hostess 
or  any  of  her  friends.  But  she  met  Mr.  Challis  on  the  esplanade 
next  day,  and  introduced  him  to  them  equably  as  a  friend  of  her 
father's.  She  must  have  forgiven  him  his  broken  promise,  or  ig- 
nored it. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

•OF  THE  NEWS  MR.  ELPHINSTONE  TOLD  MRS.  PROTHEROE.  HOW  CHALLIS 
HAD  FOLLOWED  JUDITH  TO  MENTONE.  YOUNG  MRS.  CRAIK  AND  HER 
DEAD  DICKY-BIRD.  HOW  CHALLIS  BECAME  A  KNIGHT 

WHEN  Miss  Arkroyd  came  back  to  her  sister's  wedding  in  Janu- 
ary it  was  not  to  Grosvenor  Square,  but  Royd  Hall.  A  wedding 
in  London  in  midwinter  would  have  been  too  awful.  Fancy  be- 
ing married  in  a  thick  fog!  Thus  it  happened  that  Grosvenor 
Square  remained  packed  in  brown  holland  and  carpetless  until  the 
Family  came  back  from  abroad  in  April.  The  middle  of  that 
month  saw  the  wrappers  off  the  picture-frames  and  the  carpets  on 
the  stairs.  The  windows  were  cleaned,  and  the  beds  were  made, 
and  the  fires  were  lighted.  These  last  in  every  room,  for  snow  and 
sleet  were  whirling  about  in  the  Square;  and  the  full  horror  of 
an  average  Spring  was  cutting  Londoners  to  the  quick,  after 
hopes  had  been  held  out  of  an  abnormal  one. 

The  housekeeper's  room  in  the  basement  had  as  good  a  fire  in  it 
as  the  best;  and  the  butler,  who  had  been  abroad  with  the 
Family,  and  had  come  back  in  advance  to  prepare  the  way  for  it, 
was  taking  a  cup  of  tea  there,  and  chatting  over  the  occurrences 
during  his  absence  with  the  lady  in  possession,  Mrs.  Protheroe, 
the  housekeeper — a  responsible  person,  to  whom  it  was  safe  to 
speak  about  things,  under  reserve.  One  of  the  things  was  a  thing 
to  the  importance  of  which  we  couldn't  shut  our  eyes,  if  true.  It 
threw  all  other  subjects  into  the  shade. 

"That's  the  gentleman,  Mrs.  Protheroe.  You  mark  my 
words  if  it  isn't !  "  And  Mr.  Elphinstone  repeated  his  words,  that 
they  might  be  better  marked,  more  than  once,  in  the  silence  that 
followed. 

"I  shall  be  very  greatly  shocked,  Mr.  Elphinstone,  if  it  turns 
out  like  you  think.  But  we  must  hope  and  pray  no  such  a  dis- 
grace could  happen  to  the  Family." 

The  old  lady,  a  perfect  example  of  her  kind,  who  had  known  the 
Family  through  two  generations,  was  gravely  disquieted  provi- 
sionally. But  such  a  thing  was  not  to  be  accepted  lightly,  what- 

497 


498  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

ever  it  was.  Dismiss  it  or  condemn  it,  certainly!  Entertain  it, 
scarcely ! 

Mr.  Elphinstone  appeared  to  revolve  something  in  his  mind.  It 
found  expression  in  the  words,  "  It  was  Michaelmas.  Last 
Michaelmas  twelve  months.  Just  a  year  and  a  half." 

"  He  and  his  wife  dined  once,  and  then  he  came  down  to  Royd." 
In  Mrs.  Protheroe's  speech  all  things  relate  to  the  Family,  so 
there  is  no  need  to  say  whom  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Challis  dined  with. 

"  Too  free  and  easy,  to  my  thinking.  Wife  a  stoopid  sort. 
Spoken  of  so  afterwards  in  the  Family  freely.  'Armless,  I  should 
have  put  it  at,  myself." 

"  Received,  certainly ! "  Mrs.  Protheroe  shows  that  she  an- 
ticipates comment  on  the  stupid  lady's  social  drawbacks.  But 
Mr.  Elphinstone  covers  the  ground  fully. 

"  No  questions  were  asked,"  he  says.  "  Subsequently  it  was 
elicited  Deceased  Wife's  Sister.  Information  from  Bishop  Bar- 
ham's  lady  at  the  Castle." 

"  But  her  ladyship  had  called  when  in  London."  The  implica- 
tion was  that  the  Family's  agis,  once  extended,  was  not  a  thing 
that  could  be  withdrawn  without  loss  of  prestige.  Mr.  Elphinstone 
can  recall,  with  reflection,  incidents  bearing  on  this  point. 

"  In  my  hearing,"  he  says,  "  no  one  but  the  Family  being  pres- 
ent, strong  opinions  tending  to  liberality  received  sanction.  His 
lordship  the  Bishop's  lady  being  referred  to  as  bigoted,  Sir 
Murgatroyd  especially  exculpating.  Parties  happening  to  be  other 
parties'  Deceased  Wife's  Sisters  said  to  be  victims  of  equivocal 
state  of  Law.  I  should  say,  too — but  this,  Mrs.  Protheroe,  is 
merely  opinion — that  the  voice  of  her  Grace  the  Duchess  had 
weight,  being  thrown  in  the  scale  on  the  side  of  Toleration."  Mr. 
Elphinstone  felt  pleased  with  his  figure  of  speech,  although  he 
knew  it  was  not  original.  He  was  indebted  for  it  to  Mr.  Ram- 
sey Tomes,  to  whom  he  was  an  attentive  listener. 

"Her  ladyship,"  said  Mrs.  Protheroe,  "has  been  predisposed 
towards  her  Grace  from  a  child.  Addicted,  you  might  almost  say. 
Some  do  think  her  Grace's  opinions  too  easy." 

"  In  this  case,"  said  Mr.  Elphinstone,  who  wished  to  pursue  his 
sketch  of  the  status  quo,  whatever  it  was,  "nothin'  applied. 
Owing,  I  should  say,  to  the  fundamental  attitood  of  Mrs.  Challis. 
Both  young  ladies,  as  well  as  her  ladyship,  having  gone  lengths — 
I  assure  you,  Mrs.  Protheroe,  having  gone  great  lengths." 

The  housekeeper  was  not  inclined  to  admit  that  she  knew  less 
than  the  butler.  "  So  I  have  understood,"  she  said,  and  added 
nods  about  more  things  she  knew,  but  held  in  reserve.  But  she 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  499 

would  not  entirely  exclude  Mr.  Elphinstone.  "  Miss  Sibyl  be- 
haved sweet,  I  must  say.  But  it  was  just  no  use  at  all,  any  more 
than  a  lump  of  lead." 

The  butler  looked  introspective  and  analytical. 

"You  have  to  consider,  ma'am,"  said  he,  unconsciously  bor- 
rowing a  phrase  from  Dr.  Johnson,  "  that  class-feeling  may  run 
high  when  least  expected.  Can  we  blame  a  lady  of  her  style  for 
refusing  to  mix?  Especially  when  compliance  leads  to  ructions." 

Mrs.  Protheroe  looked  thoughtful,  too.  "  Once  to  dinner,"  she 
said.  "  Once  to  an  evening.  Afterwards  excuses.  No — Mr. 
Elphinstone.  I'll  tell  you  just  how  I  see  it.  No  lady  would  ever 
feel  so  to  undervalue  herself — not  to  the  extent  of  denying  her- 
self. Their  looks  satisfy,  personally,  and  give  confidence.  But, 
sought  for  in  Society  on  behalf  of  their  husbands — no !  " 

This  way  of  putting  the  case  would  bear  polishing,  no  doubt! 
But  when  we  have  said  that  no  woman  with  any  amour  propre  at 
all  would  keep  out  of  brilliant  Society  on  her  merits,  but  might  do 
so  rather  than  be  the  mere  satellite  of  a  distinguished  husband, 
have  we  improved  so  very  much  on  Mrs.  Protheroe's  inexactitudes  ? 

Mr.  Elphinstone  would  take  a  second  cup  of  tea,  thank  you! 
He  was  determined  to  sift  to  the  dregs  this  matter  he  couldn't  shut 
his  eyes  to.  "  I  should  like,  ma'am,"  said  he,  "  to  pursue  the  sequel 
with  you,  having  spoken  so  frank.  Allow  me!  It  is  impossible 
for  me,  although  no  names  are  mentioned,  to  keep  going  a  pre- 
tence of  ignorance."  He  dropped  his  voice.  "There  is  great 
warmth  of  feeling  in  the  Family;  it  cannot  be  disguised.  The 
Family  sometimes  forget  the  presence  of  the  household,  and  raise 
their  voices.  The  household  may  conscientiously  withdraw,  but 
the  principle  continues  to  hold  good  that  scraps  leak  out."  Mr. 
Elphinstone  seemed  to  feel  a  reluctance,  creditable  in  so  old  a  re- 
tainer, to  confess  to  so  much  knowledge  of  the  Family's  private 
affairs,  overheard  against  his  will;  and  his  apologies  for  this 
knowledge  made  him  prolix.  Abbreviated,  his  narrative  told  of 
fiery  passages  of  arms  between  Judith  and  her  mother  and  sister; 
more  temperate,  but  still  warm,  discussion  between  the  former 
and  her  father,  and  a  certain  amount  of  chance  phrases  from  semi- 
confidential  talk  between  her  ladyship  and  the  Duchess,  and  one 
or  two  others.  But  they  all  related  manifestly  to  a  determination 
of  Judith  to  marry  a  gentleman  the  Family  would  have  none  of  on 
any  terms.  And  this  not  on  the  score  of  class-prejudice,  nor  of 
ways  and  means,  nor  of  any  personal  aversion,  but  simply  because 
the  said  gentleman  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  married  man. 
Having  regard  to  some  niceties  of  social  intercourse,  or  their  omis- 


500  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

sion,  as  between  Mr.  Alfred  Challis  and  Miss  Arkroyd,  their  fre- 
quent correspondence  and  obvious  empressement  in  eacb  other's 
society,  there  could  be  no  reasonable  doubt  who  this  gentleman  was. 
Mr.  Elphinstone's  second  cup  must  have  been  cold  by  the  time 
he  drank  it,  so  absorbed  was  he  in  this  narrative. 

"  I  don't  see  all  you  do,  Mr.  Elphinstone,  nor  hear.  Naturally, 
"because  of  opportunities!  But  I  have  seen  our  Miss  Judith  and 
this  Mr.  Challis  together.  ..." 

The  butler  interrupted.  "  He's  been  honoured  with  knighthood, 
as  I  understand.  Sir  Alfred  Challis.  Doo  to  literary  distinc- 
tion!" 

"  Oh,  indeed,  I  didn't  know."  Mrs.  Protheroe  was  impressed. 
"  Sir  Alfred  Challis.  Well,  I  should  have  said,  without  ever  being 
told,  they  was  going  on.  And  you  said  she  called  him  Alfred,  and 
said  she  would  marry  him?"  This  referred  to  the  most  striking 
passage  of  the  butler's  narrative.  Repetition  would  reinforce  it. 

"It  was  exactly  that,"  said  he.  "I  was  approachin'  the  door, 
and  endeavoured  to  call  attention.  But  Miss  Judith,  partly  not 
noticing,  partly  in  her  'igh  mood,  not  caring,  just  went  on :  '  I 
should  marry  Titus  if  he  were  divorced,'  she  was  just  shouting  it 
out  in  a  tempest.  'I  should'  she  says.  'Why  should  I  not 
marry  him,  when  this  woman  is  not  his  wife  ? '  And  then,  { If  she 
is  his  wife,  how  dares  she  refuse  to  live  with  him?'  And  then, 
*  If  she  is  his  wife,  how  dares  she  deprive  him  of  his  children  ? 
Answer  that ! '  It  all  came  very  quick.  Then  Miss  Judith,  she 
sees  me — just  come  in — and  says  to  me,  a  bit  quieter :  '  No,  Elphin- 
stone, don't  you  go.  I'm  going.'  And  sweeps  out,  white.  I 
asked  pardon,  but  the  bell  had  rung  twice.  Her  ladyship  says, 
•'  Never  mind,  Elphinstone ! '  Then  she  sinks  back  like  on  the  sofa, 
and  says  to  Miss  Sibyl  ..." 

The  housekeeper  interrupted.  "We  mustn't  call  her  ladyship 
out  of  her  name,"  she  said  deprecatingly. 

"Old  'abit!"  says  Mr.  Elphinstone.  "Where  was  I?  .  .  . 
Oh,  says  to  Lady  Felixthorpe,  '  The  girl  frightens  me.'  And  then, 
'  Oh  dear ! — fancy  her  making  a  scene  here  in  the  Hotel ! '  Then 
Miss  Sib  .  .  .  her  ladyship,  Lady  Felixthorpe,  she  says  to  me: 
'  Can't  the  people  in  the  next  room  hear  every  word  through  that 
door,  Elphinstone  ? '  As  if  I  knew  everything,  Mrs.  Protheroe ! " 

"  You  reassured  her  ladyship,  Mr.  Elphinstone  ?  " 

"  I  mentioned  that  the  party  in  the  next  room  was  f curing,  and 
not  unlikely  unfamiliar  with  English.  Also,  if  anyone  was  there 
they  would  be  audible — all  being  alike  in  that  respect  on  the  Con- 
tinent— but  in  point  of  fact  the  suite  was  vacant."  His  cup  was, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  501 

too.  When  he  had  received  another,  and  said  "  Thank  you,"  he 
added :  "  But  that  was  not  the  only  occasion,  by  many,  Miss  Judith 
made  use  of  the  expression  '  Titus/  " 

From  this  it  may  be  gathered  that  the  Family,  diminished  by  one 
of  the  daughters,  had  after  her  wedding  fled  to  the  Riviera,  and 
remained  until  an  enjoyable  sunshine  convinced  them — they  be- 
ing English — that  it  was  getting  too  hot,  and  also  imposed  on  their 
credulity  to  the  extent  of  making  them  believe  Spring  had  begun 
in  England.  So,  at  this  moment,  they  are  en  route  for  Grosvenor 
Square,  somewhere,  having  sent  Elphinstone  on  ahead,  to  get  the 
house  ready  for  their  arrival.  He  and  Mrs.  Protheroe  have,  there- 
fore, a  splendid  opportunity  for  comparing  notes,  and  just  before 
we  found  them  doing  so  he  had  remarked  that  a  gentleman  whom 
Mrs.  Protheroe  would  remember  two  years  ago — "  play-acting  gen- 
tleman— friend  of  Miss  Judith's — slight,  middle-aged — soft  felt 
hat — talked  to  himself — smoker — got  him  ? "  had  turned  up  at  Men- 
tone  just  before  he  left,  and  had  renewed  his  intercourse  with  the 
Family. 

Thereupon  Mrs.  Protheroe,  who  had  "got"  Challis  after  some 
effort  of  memory,  had  said  uneasily :  "  I  hope  that  would  not  be  the 
same  gentleman.  ..."  And  Mr.  Elphinstone  had  asked,  "What 
gentleman  ? "  On  which  Mrs.  Protheroe  pleaded,  apologetically, 
guilty  to  gossip.  Perhaps  she  ought  not  to  have  said  it.  But 
there,  it  was  only  the  child,  after  all.  Little  Tilley!  All  non- 
sense, most  likely!  Being  pressed,  she  ha,d  produced  a  letter  from 
Cintilla,  saying  boldly  that  "Miss  Judith's  lover  had  reappeared, 
and  they'd  made  it  up;  only  her  ladyship  and  Sir  Murgatroyd  re- 
fused to  see  him."  The  pretty  little  ex-dairy  maiden,  whom  a  course 
of  spoiling  had  not  improved,  had  withheld  the  name  of  Miss 
Judith's  admirer.  Mrs.  Protheroe  might  guess.  It  was  then  that 
Mr.  Elphinstone  noted  his  desire  that  his  words  should  be  marked. 
No  doubt  Mrs.  Protheroe  marked  them  as  little  as  you  and  I  have 
done  in  response  to  like  appeals. 

However,  this  April  chat,  more  than  ten  months  after  Challis 
wrote  his  letter  to  Judith,  to  get  her  to  try  to  whitewash  him  in 
Marianne's  eyes,  will  serve  to  show  how  the  pieces  have  shifted  on 
the  board.  For  an  untold  gap  in  a  tale  is  like  the  hour  of  the 
game  of  chess  you,  the  spectator,  were  called  away  from  to  speak 
to  Mrs.  Smith.  When  you  left,  not  a  piece  was  lost,  and  Black 
had  taken  the  opportunity  to  castle.  When  you  returned,  White 
and  Black  had  exchanged  queens,  and  heaps  of  pawns  and  pieces 
were  smiling  sickly  smiles  upon  the  floor,  and  had  lost  interest  in 
the  proceedings,  as  you  had  done  yourself.  Still,  you  pretended 


502  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

that  you  could  see  exactly  what  had  happened,  which  was  fibs.  But 
you  recovered  interest  in  the  game  then,  and  may  do  so  in  the 
story.  However,  the  intervening  hiatus  cannot  be  left  an  absolute 
blank. 

It  was  made  up,  for  Challis,  of  more  or  less  disguised  dangling 
at  the  heels  of  Judith  Arkroyd,  broken  by  several  short  excursions, 
pleasant  enough,  abroad,  and  one  short,  dreary  sojourn  at  his  own 
empty  home.  This  was  chosen  at  the  period  of  Bob's  holidays, 
which  were  divided  by  that  young  man  impartially  between  Wim- 
bledon and  Broadstairs.  He  showed  an  accommodating,  un- 
enquiring  spirit  in  his  acceptance  of  the  status  quo,  as  somehow  or 
other  right;  offering  to  fight  any  disputant  of  his  own  sex  and 
weight  who  suggested  that  his  domestic  arrangements  were  excep- 
tional. He  silenced  controversy  by  trenchant  expressions,  such  as 
"  You  shut  up,  anyhow !  "  and  went  so  far  once  as  to  tell  Tillotson 
— who  had  two  Camberwell  Beauties,  certainly,  but  was  in  all 
other  human  relations  an  Awful  Little  Humbug — that  Dean  Til- 
lotson, his  father,  and  Lady  Augusta  Tillotson,  his  mother,  only 
resided  together  to  produce  a  false  impression  of  concord  on  the 
cathedral-town  society  they  were  central  pivot  of.  Once  out  of 
the  public  sight,  according  to  Bob,  this  worthy  prelate — of  whom 
he  knew  absolutely  nothing — and  his  aristocratic  wife  "  went  on  " 
like  a  cat  and  dog.  Morally,  of  course!  Bob  admitted,  under 
catechism,  that  her  ladyship  was  not  driven  up  trees  and  afraid  to 
come  down  because  the  Dean  was  barking  at  the  bottom;  but, 
metaphorically  speaking,  he  held  to  his  indictment — provisionally, 
at  least,  until  it  should  be  shown  in  a  fair  ordeal  of  battle  that  the 
owner  of  the  Camberwell  Beauties  could  lick  its  promulgator. 
Challis  ventured  to  dwell  on  the  unfairness  of  making  the  preserva- 
tion of  an  unblemished  family  reputation  turn  on  such  an  issue, 
but  Bob  was  deaf  to  argument.  Europe  would  see,  next  term,  if  he 
didn't  give  Tillotson  an  awful  licking,  and  thereby  prove  his 
words  true.  He  would  have  done  so  last  term,  only  that  old  fool 
Spit  had  caught  the  combatants  in  flagrante  delicto,  and  made 
them  write  alternate  verses  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  "Iliad"  all 
through,  off  the  same  copy. 

Bob's  reports  of  the  household  at  Broadstairs  were  Challis's  only 
information  about  Marianne  and  the  little  girls,  and  it  appeared 
from  these  that  his  mother  had  been  loyal  to  her  husband  in  one 
respect;  she  had  kept  back  the  reasons  of  their  separation  from  the 
children.  Circumstances  had  been  glossed  over — veils  drawn. 
Young  folk  can  be  easily  duped  by  guardians  and  parents,  who  do 
not  generally  scruple — did  yours? — to  take  advantage  of  their 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  503 

simplicity.  As  long  as  his  father  and  mother  were  satisfied,  Bob 
was  content.  And  as  long  as  his  sisters  felt  in  some  sort  of  touch 
with  "  at  home,"  through  his  own  holiday  visits  "  at  grand- 
mamma's," their  inquiries  took  no  very  active  form.  Challis 
could  not  ask  his  boy  the  questions  he  longed  to  ask.  How  was  it 
possible,  for  instance,  to  say  to  him,  "  Do  Chobbles  and  Mumps 
never  ask  after  their  Pappy  ? "  He  was  constantly  in  dread  of 
saying  something  that  would  set  the  boy's  curiosity  on  the  alert. 
And  he  was  thankful,  when  the  time  for  school  came  again,  that 
it  was  still,  so  far  as  he  knew,  at  rest. 

But  the  joy  of  oblivion,  in  change  of  scene  and  association, 
grew  on  him.  He  left  England  for  the  South  of  France,  as  we 
have  seen,  shortly  after  Bob  departed  for  Broadstairs  the  first 
time,  midway  in  his  summer  holiday.  He  wandered  about  a  lit- 
tle in  old  French  towns  after  Judith  returned  for  her  sister's 
wedding,  catching  the  last  half  of  Bob's  Christmas  holiday,  that 
youth  having  spent  the  first  half  partly  at  his  grandmamma's 
and  partly  in  a  visit  to  a  school-friend.  If  you  know  and  under- 
stand boys,  you  will  feel  no  surprise  on  hearing  that  this  was  Til- 
lotson!  Bob  had  a  high  old  time  at  the  Deanery  at  Inchester  to 
tell  his  father  of  when  he  went  to  the  Hermitage  in  January. 
And  his  spontaneous  narratives  of  the  distinguishing  features  of 
Inchester  and  Broadstairs,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter,  did 
more  to  bring  an  image  of  Marianne  and  her  present  surroundings 
to  her  husband's  mind  than  more  carefully  prepared  statements, 
substantially  true,  could  have  done.  Grandmamma  was  not  a 
stinking  old  Salvation  Army  Dissenter,  but  a  properly  enrolled 
member  of  the  Establishment.  Nevertheless,  Bob's  contrast  be- 
tween what  he  called  "  her  style  "  and  that  of  the  Venerable  Dean 
was  full  of  suggestion  to  his  father,  whose  imagination  could 
supply  the  merely  academical  accuracy  needed  for  a  perfect  pic- 
ture. 

When  Bob  went  back  to  school  Challis  remained  at  the 
Hermitage  long  enough  to  complete  the  correction  of  the  proofs  of 
his  forthcoming  novel  for  the  Spring  issue.  "  The  Hangman's 
Orphan  "  had  been  already  announced  in  the  press,  and  only  a  re- 
vise or  two  was  wanting  to  complete  it.  He  arranged  that  this 
should  be  posted  to  him  at  Mentone,  where  he  expected  to  remain 
through  January.  He  could  wire  corrections  if  needful. 

Whether  his  selection  of  Mentone  for  a  winter  sojourn  was  the 
result  of  a  suggestion  from  Judith  or  not  is  of  little  importance 
to  the  story.  What  does  concern  it  is  the  question  how  Challis 
came  to  be  admitted  on  the  family  visiting-list  at  all  when  he  left 


504  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

his  card  at  the  Hotel  de  la  Paix  on  their  arrival.  Remember  what 
Sibyl's  report  may  have — must  have — been  of  the  little  drama  she 
had  distinguished  in  "  Tophet "  in  the  moonlight  of  last  June. 
Certainly  Challis  had  "left  cards"  in  Grosvenor  Square  once  or 
twice;  had,  at  Judith's  suggestion,  been  engaged  elsewhere  when 
once  asked  to  dinner,  but  had  had  no  real  intercourse  with  any 
of  the  Family,  except  that  time  when  he  was  caught  and  brought 
into  the  house  by  Cintilla.  Of  course,  if  Judith's  hand  had  been 
free,  things  would  have  been  different.  Still,  something  is  needed 
to  account  for  the  position  of  affairs  at  Mentone.  There  was  cer- 
tainly a  change. 

Our  own  belief  is  that  the  brilliant  success  of  a  play  of  our 
author's  at  the  Megatherium  Theatre  had  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  it. 

Nice  scruples  bow  before  great  booms;  and  although  Sibyl's 
antipathy,  shared  to  a  great  extent  by  her  mother,  and  her  father's 
irresolution  before  their  united  forces,  were  obstacles  to  Miss 
Arkroyd's  perfect  freedom  of  intercourse  with  that  Mr.  Challis 
who  had  married  his  Deceased  Wife's  Sister,  and  was  living  apart 
from  her,  they  were  obstacles  of  a  sort  liable  to  disappear  under  a 
sufficiently  lofty  heap  of  laurels.  Even  her  Grace  of  Rankshire, 
who  had  condemned  Challis  off-hand,  and  recommended  that  the 
doors  of  Royd  Hall  should  be  closed  against  him,  softened  in  the 
Royal  box  before  the  thunders  of  applause  that  accompanied  the 
call  for  the  author  when  the  curtain  fell  on  "  Aminta  Torrington." 
He  wasn't  Shakespeare,  of  course;  but,  then,  he  wasn't  Ibsen,  and 
what  a  comfort  that  was!  And  one  couldn't  stand  against  a  pop- 
ular verdict.  "  And,  after  all,"  said  she  to  Lady  Arkroyd,  "  we 
probably  only  know  half  the  story." 

"Well,  Thyringia,"  said  Lady  Arkroyd,  thereon,  "you  know  it 
isn't  me  that  is  making  the  fuss,"  which  was  not  only  bad  gram- 
mar, but  untrue.  "If  you  would  say  a  word  to  Sir  Murgatroyd 
to  influence  him,  it  would  have  such  weight.  And  then  the  man 
could  come  to  a  reception  or  something,  and  Ju  would  let  me  have 
a  little  peace.  I  can't  tell  you  how  sick  and  tired  I  am  of  it  all." 

Whereupon  her  Grace  had  attacked  the  Bart,  before  the  Bishop, 
to  the  discomfiture  of  both;  the  Bart,  because  he  was  really  un- 
conscious of  any  active  share  in  the  ostracism  of  Challis,  and  only 
supposed  that  he  was  meeting  her  ladyship  half-way;  the  Bishop 
because  Thyringia  seized  the  opportunity  of  flouting  his  lordship 
on  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  question — trampling  on  his  most 
cherished  episcopal  conviction  as  nothing  but  a  coronet  would  have 
dared  to  do.  She  chose  to  ascribe  the  attitude  of  Royd  towards 


IT  iNEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  505 

Challis  entirely  to  his  irregular  marriage,  and  "  pointed  out "  that 
if  the  legalizing  Bill  passed  next  year — "  and  it  would,  yes !  " — the 
Bart,  would  look  like  a  fool.  "  What  a  parcel  of  geese  you  are," 
said  her  Grace  before  a  whole  roomful  of  people,  "  to  suppose  the 
man  wants  to  marry  Judith !  .  .  .  Well !  he'll  have  to  look  sharp 
about  it,  anyhow !  "  The  Bishop  turned  purple ;  but  there ! — a 
Duchess  can  say  exactly  whatever  she  likes. 

No  doubt  the  confidence  her  Grace  expressed  that  the  "  legal- 
izing Bill "  would  pass — backed  as  her  opinion  was  by  that  of 
many  others — had  its  fair  share  of  weight.  For  both  Judith's  par- 
ents, with  a  probably  well-grounded  faith  that  their  daughter,  if 
only  from  self-interest,  would  do  nothing  irregular,  could  not 
hide  from  themselves  that  they  would  welcome  any  change  that 
would  define  the  position,  and  keep  the  suspected  couple  perma- 
nently apart. 

This  feeling  may  well  have  increased  and  taken  a  more  heart- 
felt form  when  Challis,  possibly  with  the  written  sanction  of 
Judith — but  nothing  came  out  to  that  effect — made  his  appearance 
at  Mentone.  Lady  Felixthorpe  and  her  husband  joined  the  party 
later.  It  must  have  been  during  their  short  stay  that  the  little 
scene  occurred  so  graphically  described  by  the  butler  to  Mrs. 
Protheroe.  This  little  scene,  the  news  of  which  reached  England 
a  few  days  before  its  actors,  prepares  the  story  for  a  change  in  its 
conditions.  It  has  to  adapt  itself  to  a  new  state  of  things — a 
state  three  words  of  Mr.  Elphinstone's  narrative  suffice  to  show. 
Judith  is  speaking  of  Challis  as  Titus. 

Had  the  lonely  and  reserved  young  widow  with  the  two  little 
girls,  who  lived  with  her  mother  at  Broadstairs,  and  was  called 
by  the  few  who  had  occasion  to  call  her  anything  "  Young  Mrs. 
Craik " — had  she  been  told  that  that  other  woman,  whom  she 
hated  as  a  Choctaw  hates  a  Cherokee — to  scalping-point — was 
actually  speaking  and  thinking  of  the  husband  she  had  renounced 
by  the  name  the  pride  of  her  heart  in  his  first  great  success  in 
authorship  had  chosen  and  kept  for  him  and,  although  less  frequent 
in  speech  than  of  old,  it  was  the  name  her  own  mind  still  gave 
him — would  it  have  added  anything  to  her  resentment?  Would 
she  have  been  one  scrap  more  miserable  than  she  was,  for  knowing 
it?  The  story  has  to  report  otherwise. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Marianne  would  in  a  sense  have  welcomed 
the  knowledge.  She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  kill  her  love  for 
the  father  of  her  children,  and  it  may  be  she  found  it  died  harder 
than  she  expected.  Did  you,  who  read  this,  ever  have  to  kill  any- 


506  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

thing  larger  than  an  insect  you  could  flatten  out  in  a  trice  to  a 
mere  blot?  You  may  perhaps  have  caught  some  bird,  maimed  by 
a  sportsman — or  sportsbooby — past  all  hope  of  rising  in  the  wind — • 
just  a  scrabbled  wreck,  good  for  nothing  but  for  a  sportscat  to  get 
a  little  joy  from — and  may  have  seen  that  it  would  be  merciful  in 
you,  not  a  sportsperson  at  all,  but  a  sentimentalist,  to  make  a 
quick  end  of  it;  and  then  you  may  have  tried,  and  found  it  still 
had  heart  in  it  for  a  fight  for  life.  Did  your  sentimentalism  make 
you  feel  sick,  till  the  last  last  kick  left  it  collapsed  and  cooling? 
Then,  were  you  not  glad  ? 

Marianne  would  have  been  glad  to  know  that  her  love  for  Titus 
was  dead,  and  the  killing  of  it  come  to  an  end.  But  would  it  die  ? 
There  was  always  the  painful  doubt.  Your  little  dicky-bird  ended 
on  a  tiny  jerk,  and  hung  limp  and  chill.  Would  a  love  those  two 
young  folks  brought  back  memories  of,  hour  by  hour,  do  the  like? 

More  than  once,  Choctaw  as  she  was,  her  mind  had  wavered 
towards  relenting.  Once  she  had  actually  begun  a  letter  to  her 
husband — not  imploring  forgiveness  for  her  overstrained  anger 
and  jealousy;  she  was  too  proud  for  that  sort  of  thing — but  the 
other  sort  of  thing,  the  sort  that  is  ready  with  Christian  Forgive- 
ness, the  sort  that  makes  the  consumption  of  a  good  large  humble 
pie  a  sine  qua-  non,  the  sort  that  indulges  in  a  truculent  sort  of  joy 
over  the  sinner  that  repenteth.  She  was  too  proud  to  admit  that 
she  had  been  at  all  in  fault,  but  just — only  just — not  too  proud 
to  indulge  a  secret  hope  that  Titus  would  be  magnanimous  enough 
to  shut  his  eyes  to  her  omission.  All  she  wanted  was  contrition 
galore  and  absolution  absolute.  On  those  terms  she  would  come 
back  and  marshal  Mrs.  Steptoe  and  the  crew  of  a  new  domestic 
Argo.  Only,  bygones  were  to  be  bygones!  She  had  a  dim  sense 
that  this  expression  was  to  be  held  to  mean  that  Charlotte  Eldridge 
was  to  be  assoilzied.  It  was  a  dim  one,  because  she  had  no  idea 
of  admitting  that  she  had  been  influenced  by  Charlotte. 

Her  mother  dissuaded  her  from  sending  this  letter,  if  you  call 
it  dissuasion  to  "point  out"  that  Hell-fire  awaits  those  who  run 
counter  to  your  voice  of  warning.  What  Challis  would  have  called 
the  "  religious  hoots "  of  the  worthy  old  lady  took  the  form  of 
warning  her  daughter  against  returning  to  what  Holy  Writ  de- 
nounced plainly  as  a  Life  of  Sin.  She  omitted  to  mention  the 
chapter  and  verse;  but,  then,  her  style,  as  Bob  called  it,  was  one 
that  lent  itself  to  fervour — not  to  say  bluster — rather  than  verifica- 
tion of  references.  It  was  a  style  that  Bob,  backed  by  his  father — 
and  Tillotson's,  for  that  matter — could  easily  sneer  at.  But  it  was 
harder  for  Marianne  to  ignore  the  force  of  the  words-without- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  507 

meaning  that  had  been  thundered  at  her  from  her  cradle.  The 
well-worn  phrases  had  force  in  them  still  for  her,  and  when  she 
burned  that  letter  she  had  a  kind  of  sacred  feeling,  like  the  North- 
ern Farmer  when  he  came  away  from  Church. 

It  is  right  to  mention,  lest  any  reader  should  condemn  Marianne 
for  too  great  submission  to  her  mother,  that  the  thunderbolts  of 
hereditary  superstition  were  not  the  only  malign  influences  she 
had  to  bear  up  against.  She  never  lost  touch  with  Charlotte 
Eldridge.  In  fact,  Charlotte  paid  her  more  than  one  short  visit 
at  Broadstairs,  and  made  the  best  use  of  her  time  in  each. 
Nothing  could  have  exceeded  the  earnestness  of  her  supplications 
to  her  friend  to  allow  her  to  act  as  intercessor  and  mediator,  to  be 
the  bearer  of  the  olive-branch  of  peace,  except  it  were  the  warmth 
of  her  exhortations  to  forgiveness,  or  the  subtle  dexterity  with 
which  the  suggestion  of  offence  still  untold  weakened  the  effect 
of  both.  It  is  impossible  to  enlarge  on  the  merit  of  overlooking 
the  wrong  that  has  been  inflicted  on  us,  without  by  implication 
enlarging  the  area  of  the  wrong  itself.  Meekness  needs  some- 
thing to  work  with;  a  buffalo  cannot  find  sustenance  from  a 
flower-pot.  Charlotte  never  asked  pardon  for  the  offender  without 
contriving  to  suggest  a  new  offence. 

Of  course,  if  Marianne  had  not  been  a  bit  of  a  Choctaw,  the 
position  need  never  have  become  so  exasperated.  But  it  isn't  fair 
to  make  her  the  scapegoat  on  that  account.  What  a  many  items 
of  the  total  imbroglio  could  have  cancelled  it,  by  simply  attending 
to  their  own  non-existence!  If,  for  instance,  Judith  Arkroyd  had 
kept  her  eyes  to  herself,  or  had  never  left  Challis's  hand  to  do  the 
letting-go — who  can  say,  then,  what  the  exact  force  of  that  moon- 
light adventure  in  Tophet  would  have  been?  Or  if  that  theatrical 
nonsense  had  not  let  witchcraft  loose  on  an  easy  victim;  easy  be- 
cause unsuspicious?  Or  if  Marianne's  writing-paper  had  been  the 
thin  sort  that  goes  abroad,  eight  pages  for  twopence-halfpenny,  in- 
stead of  that  sort  the  envelope  cuts  your  tongue  when  you  lick  it  to 
— Harmood's  phraseology,  we  believe — would  not  Challis  have 
read  the  postscript  ?  Think  of  the  difference  that  would  have  made  I 

No ! — there  is  no  sense  in  trying  to  fix  blame ;  certainly  not  on 
either  of  the  principal  actors.  Blame  Judith  if  you  like!  But 
even  then,  bear  in  mind  that  until  Challis  broke  out  in  that  foolish 
way,  Judith  had  observed  all  the  rules  of  the  game,  and  was 
playing  fair.  Do  her  justice!  Can  you  gibbet  Judith,  without 
affirming  that  a  woman  has  no  right  to  be  beautiful,  and  very 
little  to  take  for  granted  that  a  man  with  a  still  young  wife  and 
two  children  will  not  credit  her  with  a  readiness  to  assume  as  a 


508  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

matter  of  course  that  he  will  never  imagine  that  she  will  suppose 
he  has  fallen  in  love  with  her  ?  .  .  .  We  hope  this  is  intelligible. 
More  might  be  added  to  the  same  effect,  but  let  it  stand. 

Judith's  father  never  saw  any  fault  to  be  found  with  his 
daughter's  conduct;  so  why  should  the  story?  However,  it  is  true 
that  Sibyl  always  said  that  papa  was  a  bat ;  and  her  ladyship  sug- 
gested that,  socially  speaking,  conflagrations  might  break  out  all 
round,  and  Sir  Murgatroyd  never  notice  them  until  she  called  his 
attention  to  them.  When  the  Duchess  said  what  the  story  has  al- 
ready reported  about  Challis  and  Judith,  it  only  presented  itself 
to  him  as  a  sheer  joke;  his  Arcadian  mind  could  not  receive  the 
idea  of  Judith — our  Judith! — nourishing  a  tendresse  for  ...  a 
married  author!  It  was  not  the  authorship,  but  the  marriage,  or 
marriages  rather;  for  if  we  considered  Marianne  null  and  void, 
what  should  we  call  her  residuum?  A  widower  at  large,  with  a 
doubtful  record? 

The  fact  is,  the  old  boy  had  a  fine  chivalrous  heart  behind  his 
occasional  absurdities,  and  any  advantage  taken  of  a  legal  tech- 
nicality to  shuffle  out  of  a  deliberate  contract  would  have  been 
branded  by  him  as  it  deserved.  And,  although  it  was  quite  untrue 
that  he  was  the  maker  of  the  fuss  her  ladyship  disclaimed  any 
hand  in,  it  is  certain  that  he  inaugurated  a  fuss  of  his  own  inven- 
tion after  that  outbreak  of  the  Duchess,  when  he  heard — to 
deglutition  point — the  full  story  of  Marianne's  revolt.  It  had 
been  placed  before  him  some  time  since  in  an  imperfect  form,  but 
he  had  swallowed  barely  a  mouthful.  Now  that  his  wife  satisfied 
the  curiosity  her  Grace's  escapade  had  excited,  and  gave  him  full 
details,  he  became  keen  to  justify  Mrs.  Challis,  and  was  for  a 
while  secretly  intolerant  of  her  husband.  He  would  know  all 
about  it;  and  in  spite  of  his  informant's  appeal  to  him  to  be  most 
careful  on  no  account  to  say  anything  to  Judith,  he  seized  an 
early  opportunity  to  get  at  that  young  lady's  version  of  the  subject. 

"  Oh  dear ! — that  tiresome  woman !  "  was  her  spoken  response. 
But  the  kiss  she  bestowed  on  her  parent's  shaving-area  was  com- 
miserating, tolerant  of  the  inquiry,  not  absolutely  unamused  at 
the  Arcadian  simplicity  of  the  kissA*  Dear  old  man,  leaving  his 
manures  and  eleventh  centuries  and  things,  to  meddle  with  Us 
and  the  World !  A  kiss  that  said,  "  What  a  shame  of  mamma  to 
disturb  such  pastoral  tranquillity ! "  But  Judith  would  keep 
nothing  back,  not  she !  She  dropped  into  the  visitor's  chair  of  the 
Bart.'s  sanctum,  to  tell  the  tale,  throwing  her  hands  in  her  lap,  to 
lie  there  till  wanted;  a  sort  of  despairing  submission  to  lip-bore- 
dom to  come.  "  I  need  not  drum  through  the  whole  story;  it's  too 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  509 

silly ! "     She  looked  appealingly  at  her  father,  who  immediately 
weakened  his  position  of  catechist. 

"  Oh  no ! — your  mother  has  told  me  the  main  facts,"  said  he. 
And  then,  perhaps  feeling  ground  lost,  added :  "  At  least,  I  infer 

80." 

"Did  she  tell  you  7  was  supposed  to  be  the  heroine  of  the  ro- 
mance?" Eyes  closed  for  a  second  on  an  amused  face,  reopened 
to  look  for  the  answer.  Self-possession  perfect! 

"  Well — yes !     She  said  something  of  the  sort." 

"  Did  she  say  I  was  in  love  with  Challis  ?  " 

"  Certainly  not !  "    Emphatically. 

"  Well,  I  don't  know !  One  can't  trust  one's  madre.  I  shouldn't 
have  been  the  least  surprised." 

"Oh — hum — well!     Very  distinguished  man.   ..." 

"  Oh,  I  like  Challis  very  much.  He's  a  most  amusing  com- 
panion. I  wish  that  fool  of  a  woman  wouldn't  make  him  so  mis- 
erable." 

"I  understand  she  took  offence  at  his  showing  you.  ..." 

"  Showing  me  her  letter !  Yes — just  fancy !  Why — the  letter 
was  as  good  as  a  letter  to  me.  It  was  nothing  but  a  message  to  say 
why  she  wouldn't  come  to  Royd.  .  .  .  No,  really  there  was 
nothing  else  in  it.  ...  Well! — something  illegible  on  the  back 
that  he  had  overlooked.  And  she  would  listen  to  no  explanation, 
and  went  off  in  a  fury,  and  took  the  children  with  her.  And  he's 
never  seen  her  since." 

"  I  can't  believe  she  has  any  claim  to  the  children.  Has  he 
taken  legal  advice  ? " 

"  Oh  dear,  yes !  Heaps.  But  it  seems  he  can  do  nothing.  She 
•was  a  half -sister  of  his  first  wife,  you  know.  If  he  had  married 
her  in  Australia,  he  might,  they  said,  have  got  some  legal  remedy 
in  Australia;  but  even  then  they  thought  he  would  have  had  a 
cleal  of  trouble  to  get  at  the  children.  I  think  he  has  done  wisely 
to  let  it  alone,  Frank  says  the  Bill  is  sure  to  pass  the  Lords  this 
year  or  next;  probably  this.  Then  she'll  have  to  be  his  wife, 
whether  she  likes  it  or  not.  I've  no  patience  with  such  folly." 

The  Baronet  assumed  the  look  of  intense  profundity  political 
males  generally  wear  in  the  presence  of  womankind,  suggesting 
magazines  of  thought  beyond  their  shallow  comprehension.  "  Some 
— very — funny — questions,"  he  said,  in  judicial  instalments,  "  will 
arise  if  that  Bill  becomes  Law.  Ve-ry  funny  ones."  But  appar- 
ently too  complex  or  too  delicate  for  discussion  with  one's  daugh- 
ters. So  the  Bart,  shut  them  into  his  soul  with  the  closed  lips  of 
•discretion,  and  looked  responsible. 


510  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Perhaps  Judith  saw  her  way  to  quenching  any  suspicions  anent 
herself  and  Challis  by  parading  her  unreluctance  to  talk  about 
him.  "  I  don't  know,"  said  she,  "  that  a  little  trouble  is  neces- 
sarily bad  for  Challis,  with  all  this  success  going  on.  It  may 
save  him  from  becoming  odious.  Besides,  of  course,  Marianne 
means  to  come  back  to  him  in  the  end." 

This  was  about  the  time  of  Sibyl's  wedding,  shortly  after  the 
production  of  "  Aminta  Torrington."  So  convincing  was  Judith's 
attitude  of  her  detachment  from  Challis,  helped  always  by  his 
leaving  England  immediately  afterwards,  that  all  suspicion  had 
vanished  from  the  mind  of  her  parents  by  the  time  he  made  his 
appearance  at  Mentone ;  and  at  that  time  Sibyl  was  honeymooning. 
There  had  never  been  anything  that  could  be  called  a  split.  And 
discretion,  for  some  reason,  must  have  been  carefully  observed  by 
Challis  and  Judith  during  this  visit,  for  gossip  never  mentioned 
them  in  the  same  breath.  And  the  lady's  father,  in  our  opinion, 
was  righteously  shocked  when  it  came  to  his  knowledge  that  his 
daughter  and  this  gentleman,  who  had  been  accepting  his  hospi- 
tality as  a  married  man,  were  to  all  intents  and  purposes  plighted 
lovers,  and  free  to  wed  without  let  or  hindrance.  Except,  indeed, 
on  the  lady's  side,  an  almost  solid  phalanx  of  family  opposition; 
and  on  the  gentleman's  a  previous  marriage  which  was  no  legal 
wedlock  at  all,  but  which  he  could  not  be  said  to  have  been  dis- 
loyal to,  for  he  had  never  either  refused  to  play  the  husband  nor 
been  guilty  of  any  legal  infidelity.  It  was  entirely  Marianne  who 
had  refused  to  play  the  wife. 

Lord  Felixthorpe,  Sibyl's  coronet,  was  the  only  dissentient  in  the 
family  circle.  "  It  certainly  seems  to  me,"  said  he,  as  deliberately 
as  ever,  "  that  either  our  Legal  Acumen,  or  our  Boasted  Civiliza- 
tion, or  our  Moral  Sense,  or  the  Marvellous  Elasticity  of  our 
Political  System,  or  Convocation,  or  the  Higher  Socialism,  or 
something  equally  impressive,  must  be  in  a  sense  defective,  when 
any  person  not  convicted  of  crime  is  under  compulsion  to  live 
single,  as  long  as  there  is  a  lady  willing  to  marry  him.  I  say 
nothing  of  the  case  of  a  friend  of  ours  (whom  I  do  not  name  for 
obvious  reasons)  who  says  that  no  lady  will  accept  him.  If  he 
were  to  endeavour  to  drag  an  unwilling  bride  to  the  altar,  the 
police  should  be  instructed  to  interpose.  But  in  the  case  of  Chal- 
lis— if  I  am  rightly  informed — my  fascinating  sister-in-law  is 
ready  to  accept  the  situation.  Now,  although,  under  the  existing 
Law,  one's  own  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  is  excluded  from  the  ques- 
tionable advantage  of  becoming  one's  Legitimate  Wife,  the  most 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  511 

stringent  morality  has  never  enrolled  someone  else's  Live  Wife's 
Sister  among  prohibited  degrees  of  consanguinity.  ..." 

"Do  say  what  you  mean,  Frank,  instead  of  going  out  of  your 
way  to  make  fun  of  Will,  and  talking  nonsense ! " 

"  I  mean,  dearest,  that  it's  too  much  to  expect  of  any  fellow 
that  he's  to  stand  his  wife  bolting  on  the  plea  that  the  wedding- 
knot  wasn't  tied,  and  lugging  away  his  kids,  and  refusing  to  see 
him,  and  him  not  be  allowed  to  marry  somebody  else." 

But  William  Rufus,  who  had  been  slighted  by  an  American 
beauty,  and  was  gloomy  in  consequence,  shook  his  head  and  said: 
"  Can't  see  it— never  shall !  "  And  Sibyl  settled  the  matter.  "  If 
he  wants  to  marry  anybody  else's  husband's  Live  Wife's  Sister,  let 
him !  Only  not  mine !  " 

So  it  had  come  about  that  discord  reigned  in  Grosvenor  Square 
when  the  Family  returned  from  Mentone.  But  the  outer  world 
knew  nothing  about  it.  Mr.  Elphinstone  and  Mrs.  Protheroe 
talked  of  what  they  heard  to  each  other,  and  nothing  reached  the 
lower  stratum  of  the  household.  Conjecture  must  supply  a  motive 
for  delay  on  the  part  of  this  betrothed  couple:  for  they  must  be 
called  so.  If  they  intended  to  ignore  Marianne  and  defy  public 
opinion,  why  not  do  so  at  once  ?  Was  it  because  no  certainty  ex- 
isted that  Challis's  marriage  was  invalid  ?  No  legal  means  of  dis- 
solving a  marriage  not  recognized  by  Law  seems  to  exist.  It  was 
impossible  to  make  a  clean  slate  and  start  fair.  Who  could  say 
that  time  would  be  sufficient  to  calm  the  family  tempest  and  put 
the  ship  in  commission  so  as  to  be  sure  of  sailing  before  that  Bill 
was  brought  forward  in  the  Commons?  Suppose  it  was  rushed 
through,  and  overtook  the  wedding  1  Was  Judith's  thirst  for  wed- 
lock intense  enough  to  run  such  a  risk?  Was  it  not,  rather,  com- 
mon prudence  to  wait  for  the  rejection  of  the  Bill,  and  have  a  cool 
year  to  turn  the  matter  over?  Our  own  impression  is  that  the 
young  lady  was  not  in  love  enough  to  say  yes  to  the  first  question, 
or  no  to  the  second. 

Whether  Challis's  arrangement  of  his  affairs  and  his  where- 
abouts— always  favouring  what  Harmood  would  have  called  "  keep- 
ing company,"  while  thrusting  himself  as  little  as  possible  on  the 
Family — was  in  consequence  of  a  definite  plan  of  campaign,  Ar- 
ranged with  Judith,  is  not  known  to  this  story.  There  is  a  sus- 
picion that  the  attack  of  influenza  that  laid  him  up  at  Marseilles 
on  November  6  was  made  the  most  of,  in  order  that  he  might 
shirk  the  receipt  of  knighthood  in  person  on  the  9th.  There  is 
his  name  among  the  Birthday  Honours  of  the  year;  and,  as  we 
all  know,  he  is  now  Sir  Alfred  Challis.  He  was  able,  somehow,  to 


512  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

get  enough  degrees  of  fever  certified  to  make  his  presence  at  the 
Palace  impossible;  but  whether  he  knelt  to  receive  them  subse- 
quently, or  whether  they  reached  him  through  the  aether,  like  a 
Marconigraph,  we  do  not  know.  He  had  certainly  shaken  off  the 
"  flu  "  very  completely  when  he  came  to  England  after  Christmas. 

The  story  is  a  bit  hazy  on  many  points  at  this  period.  What 
made  Challis,  with  all  his  impatience  with  what  he  called  the 
"  performing  classes,"  accept  a  knighthood  ?  One  theory — a 
plausible  one — is  that  Judith  ordered  him  to  do  so.  Not  from 
any  idea  that  her  parents  or  Sibyl  would  soften  towards  Challis  on 
that  account — much  they  cared  for  knighthoods!  But  she  was 
woman  enough  to  wish  to  have  the  World  on  her  side.  It  might 
be  a  snobbish  world ;  but  what  a  big  one  it  is !  And  what  a  lot  of 
power  one's  elbow  gets  from  the  sympathy  of  it!  Anyhow,  to  our 
thought,  Challis,  having  accepted  the  honour  at  Judith's  bidding, 
ought  to  have  overcome  his  reluctance  to  conform  to  usages,  and 
not  run  his  temperature  up  to  103.  As  it  was,  the  little  ther- 
mometer had  its  way. 

He  remained  abroad,  then,  until  the  Easter  holiday — which  co- 
incided, you  see,  very  nearly  with  the  return  of  the  Family  to 
Grosvenor  Square — when  he  came  to  Wimbledon  for  some  more 
Bob.  All  we  want  to  know  about  him  at  this  time,  and  for  a  little 
time  yet,  is  that  his  correspondence  with  Judith  continued,  'and 
that  during  the  season  in  London  the  two  of  them  contrived  to 
meet  very  frequently.  It  was  a  wonder  they  managed  to  steer 
clear  of  gossip  as  cleverly  as  they  did. 

But  an  anxious  time  was  approaching.  Suppose  that  Bill 
passed!  .  .  . 

Did  Challis  ever  say  to  himself,  to  put  a  finishing-touch  on  the 
oddity  of  his  position,  "What  would  it  matter?  If  it  did  put  a 
barrier  between  me  and  Judith,  would  it  not  give  me  back  my 
old  home  and  the  kids  ?  "  The  story  can  conceive  his  doing  so,  and 
also  that  his  mind  would  then  wander  back  on  his  old  days  .  .  . 
not  always  perfect;  but  still!  .  .  .  and  then  would  shudder  at 
its  own  brutality,  for  never  asking  what  of  Judith,  in  that  case? 
What  would  be  left  for  her?  For  Challis,  though  he  had  spec- 
ulated a  good  deal  in  his  writings  on  the  many  ways  of  loving 
that  there  are,  had  scarcely  applied  his  conclusions  to  himself. 
Some  theorists  will  have  it  that  no  man  ever  has  the  slightest  con- 
sideration for  the  woman  he  loves — in  one  of  the  ways,  mind  you! 
— suppose  we  say  the  volcanic  way!  They  hold  that  it  is  himself 
he  loves  all  the  time. 

However,  the  Bishop  said  it  was  impossible  that  Bill  should  pass. 
And  he  ought  to  have  known. 


CHAPTER  XL 

HOW  MISS  POSSETT  WENT  TO  ROYD.  ON  SUSPENSION  OP  OPINION. 
ANXIETY  ABOUT  LIZARANN.  A  VISIT  TO  JIM,  AND  A  RETROSPECT. 
HOW  MISS  FOSSETT  MADE  A  NICE  MESS  OF  IT 

A  HOT  July  was  drawing  to  a  close,  and  Athelstan  Taylor  and 
his  friend  Gus's  sister  Adeline  Fossett  were  out  early  in  the  Rec- 
tory garden,  and  had  many  things  to  talk  about.  It  was  the  Satur- 
day morning  of  a  Friday  to  Monday  visit,  which  could  not  be  pro- 
longed, on  any  terms,  till  Tuesday. 

One  of  the  things  they  had  to  talk  about  was  sad,  as  anyone 
could  have  told  from  their  voices,  without  hearing  a  word  dis- 
tinctly. Because  they  were  speaking  with  such  very  resolute 
cheerfulness  of  it;  putting  such  a  good  face  on  it;  each  of  them 
evidently  thinking  the  other  wanted  an  ally. 

"  I  go  by  Sidrophel."  It  was  Athelstan  who  said  this.  "  Tak- 
ing a  man  out  of  London  to  live  on  the  south  shore  of  the 
Mediterranean  is  like  giving  meat  and  drink  after  a  diet  of  poisons. 
You'll  see  Gus's  first  letters  will  say  he's  well.  He  won't  be,  of 
course;  one  mustn't  expect  miracles.  But  it  will  seem  like  that — 
to  him." 

"I  think  that's  very  likely.  But  when  I  said  I  wished  I  had 
been  able  to  go  with  him,  I  didn't  mean  that.  I  don't  believe  he'll 
want  any  coddling  or  looking  after  out  there.  What  I  was  think- 
ing of  was  the  poor  boy  being  so  lonely,  all  by  himself."  But 
Athelstan  laughed  out  at  this :  the  idea  of  a  pastor  of  a  flock  being 
lonely! — the  last  thing  in  the  world!  The  lady  admitted  this,  and 
helped  it  a  little.  "  Yes — and,  after  all,  it  isn't  as  if  we  had  seen 
each  other  every  day  when  he  was  in  London."  Then  she  re- 
flected a  little,  and  added:  "Besides,  I  couldn't  have  gone,  any- 
how, because  of  mother."  Of  whom  this  story  can  report  nothing, 
no  questions  having  been  asked.  "  Mother  "  must  have  her  place 
in  it  as  the  1'eason  Miss  Fossett  could  not  go  to  Tunis. 

Something  came  to  the  Rector's  mind  which  provoked  a  cheerful 
laugh.  "I  suppose,"  he  said,  "poor  Challis  would  say  we  were 
bringing  an  indictment  against  the  Almighty." 

"I  wonder  you  call  him  'poor  Challis/  Yorick.    I've  no  pa- 

513 


514  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

tience!  I've  heard  all  about  it  from  the  other  side,  you  know. 
But  what  did  you  mean  he  says?"  The  question  is  asked  stiffly. 
Challis  is  evidently  not  in  favour. 

"  He  says  that  resignation,  as  practised,  always  seems  to  be 
meant  as  an  indictment  against  the  Almighty.  It's  true  he  said 
he  was  referring  to  venomous  resignation.  We  must  hope  ours  is 
t'other  sort." 

"I  won't  laugh  at  anything  Mr.  Challis  says,  Yorick.  I've  no 
patience  with  a  man  who  behaves  so  to  his  wife.  My  cousin  Lotty 
knew  the  whole  thing  from  the  beginning,  and  it's  quite  impos- 
sible she  should  be  mistaken.  .  .  .  Oh  yes ! — I  know  what  you're 
going  to  say.  That  little  bit  of  Latin  ..." 

"  Well ! — it's  a  very  good  little  bit,  as  far  as  it  goes.  Audi 
alteram  partem!  Nobody  ever  bursts  from  bottling  up  his  judg- 
ment until  he  has  heard  both  sides." 

"  My  dear  Yorick,  I  agree  with  you  absolutely  about  the  prin- 
ciple as  a  general  rule.  But  in  this  particular  case  I  do  think  you 
are  unreasonable.  How  is  it  possible  Lotty  should  be  mistaken, 
when  Mrs.  Challis  is  actually  living  at  her  mother's  at  Tulse  Hill  ? 
Oh  no !  I  do  think  you're  quite  wrong !  " 

"  But  I'm  only  refusing  to  form  an  opinion.  I'm  not  express- 
ing one." 

"  Well,  if  you  don't  see  that  Mr.  Challis  must  be  in  the  wrong, 
you  never  will  see  it.  Don't  be  ridiculous  and  paradoxical, 
Yorick  dear,  because  you  know  perfectly  well  you  agree.  Now 
don't  you?" 

"  Can't  say  I  do."  And  the  conversation  ran  for  some  distance 
on  the  same  pair  of  wheels,  the  lady  always  maintaining  that  in 
this  one  particular  case  suspension  of  opinion,  pending  produc- 
tion of  evidence,  is  the  merest  affectation,  and  the  gentleman 
resolutely  refusing  to  make  any  exceptions.  However,  Miss  Fos- 
sett  had  not  produced  all  her  arguments. 

"  Besides,  Yorick  dear,  you  know  Mr.  Challis  did  tell  you  all  his 
side  of  the  story."  A  head-shake.  "No? — well,  he  had  the  op- 
portunity of  telling  you,  and  he  didn't,  which  is  the  same  thing." 

"  No — no,  Addie,  not  the  same  thing — not  the  same  thing !  You 
know  I  had  a  long  talk  twice  with  him  about  it.  I  went  to  see  him 
on  purpose,  and  neither  time  would  he  say  a  single  word  in  self- 
defence  ..." 

"  Because  he  couldn't ! " 

"  Oh  no — no !  Indeed,  you're  unfair  to  him.  When  I  say  audi 
alteram  partem,  in  this  case,  I  really  mean  wait  till  we  are  certain 
we  have  heard  all  there  is  to  be  said  on  the  other  side.  I  am  as 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  515 

sure  as  that  I  am  standing  here  that  the  poor  chap  was  tongue- 
tied  by  chivalry  to  his  wife.  I  wish  she  would  have  seen  me  when 
I  went  .  .  ." 

"You  did  go?" 

"  Oh  yes — I  went  at  once  after  seeing  him,  and  only  succeeded 
in  seeing  her  mother,  a  horrid,  religious  old  woman  ..." 

"Yorick  dear!" 

"  Well — you  know  what  I  mean.  The  old  woman  as  good  as  told 
me  I  was  a  disgrace  to  my  cloth,  because  I  spoke  of  marriage 
with  a  deceased  wife's  sister  as  an  open  question.  You  know  that 
question  comes  into  Challis's  affair — comes  very  much  in  .  .  ." 

"  I  know.  I  know  all  about  it.  Only  it's  not  the  chief  part 
...  a  ...  but  you  know,  of  course  ? " 

"  Yes — yes ! — what  it  was — of  course !  "  And  then  each  nods 
and  looks  intuitive.  If  Charlotte  Eldridge  had  been  watching 
them  then  through  a  telescope,  she  would  have  been  able  to  spot 
the  exact  moment  at  which  a  lady  and  gentleman — an  unsanc- 
tioned  brace,  that  is — came  on  the  tapis. 

How  far  can  they  be  legitimately  discussed — by  us  who  know 
the  lady?  That's  the  point!  Miss  Fossett  bites  a  thoughtful  lip 
about  it.  Mr.  Taylor  utters  a  succession  of  short  "  hm's "  and 
one  long  one;  then  says  in  a  by-the-way  manner  that  accepts  a 
slight  head-shake  as  an  answer :  "  Didn't  Judith  Arkroyd  speak  to 
you?  .  .  .  Oh,  I  fancied  she  did;"  adding,  in  a  reserved  tone 
of  voice:  "You  know,  I  dare  say,  that  she  herself  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Challis."  And  this  speech  seems  to  have  the  singular  effect  of  re- 
moving a  padlock  from  Adeline  Fossett's  tongue. 

"  Handsome  Judith  ? "  she  says,  oddly  lighting  on  Marianne's 
term  for  her  bete  noire.  "  Oh,  7  know ! — I  quite  understand." 

"  But  what  do  you  understand  ?  Come,  Addie  dear,  don't  be 
.  .  .  don't  be  female  about  it.  Do  say  what !  " 

The  impression  or  suggestion  that  she  might  have  married 
which  we  fancy  this  story  referred  to  when  she  first  came  into  it 
seemed  to  mellow  and  mature  in  Miss  Fossett  as  she  replied,  "  Oh, 
Yorick,  dear  old  boy !  What  an  Arcadian  shepherd  you  are !  " 
And  then  she  laughed,  and  repeated,  "  Handsome  Judith ! " 

"  But  she  showed  me  the  letter — she  showed  me  the  letter ! " 
cries  the  Rector,  in  a  kind  of  frenzy  with  his  friend  for  her  per- 
sistence in  being  female,  as  he  calls  it.  "  Come,  Addie,  what 
could  she  do  more  ? " 

The  above-named  suggestion  seems  to  mature  until  it  all  but 
insinuates  that  Adeline  might  marry  still,  if  she  chose.  The 
thought  just  reaches  the  Rector's  mind,  and  leaves  it  as  she  re- 


516  IT  NEYER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

peats,  in  answer  to  his  question,  "  What  more,  indeed  ?  But  what 
did  she  say,  I  should  like  to  know  ? " 

"  Ah ! — that's  the  point.  And  we  think  we're  going  to  be  told, 
do  we?"  The  Rector  laughed  a  big  good-humoured  laugh.  He 
detects  in  himself,  and  is  puzzled  by  it,  a  new-born  disposition  to 
treat  Addie  as  if  she  were  in  her  teens,  entirely  caused  by  her 
excursion  into  feminine  paths  hard  to  explain  or  classify. 

But  she  unexpectedly  forms  square  to  repulse  patronage;  harks 
back,  as  it  were,  to  her  thirties  or  forties — scarcely  the  latter  yet — 
and  says  gravely,  "  No,  dear  old  boy !  I  won't  try  to  pry  into  any 
confidence.  Don't  tell  me  anything." 

"  I  would  as  soon  tell  you  as  anyone " — he  is  looking  at  his 
watch — "  a  ...  yes  .  .  .  sooner  than  anyone — now  Gus  is 
gone."  If  the  last  four  words  had  not  been  spoken,  a  hearer — 
Mrs.  Eldridge,  say — might  have  built  an  interest  on  what  had 
preceded  them.  Those  four  made  the  speech  fraternal. 

Miss  Fossett  had  come  to  Royd  Rectory  to  pay  a  visit  of  con- 
solation, following  close  on  her  brother's  recent  departure  for 
Tunis.  But  it  was  also  a  visit  to  Lizarann.  Her  affection  for 
the  child  was  manifest  from  the  fact  that,  when  she  arrived  last 
night,  before  ever  she  ate  a  scrap  of  anything,  after  all  that  long 
journey,  she  went  to  look  at  her  where  she  was  asleep.  It  was  nurse 
who  made  this  mental  note,  and  who  remarked  also,  when  Miss 
Fossett  left  the  child's  bedside,  that  she  looked  that  upset  you 
quite  noticed  it.  Also  that  when  the  visitor  said,  "  Is  she  always 
like  that?"  she  seemed  asking  to  enquire,  like. 

"  And  what  did  you  say,  Ellen  ? "  said  Miss  Caldecott,  in  nurse's 
confidence.  "  I  hope  you  didn't  frighten  Miss  Fossett." 

"  Oh  no,  miss !  I  was  careful  not.  I  said  the  doctor  took  a 
most  favourable  view,  and  had  all  along.  I  told  what  he  said 
about  perspirations,  and  not  to  take  too  much  account  of  tem- 
peratures, and  improving  symptoms.  Oh  no,  I  wasn't  likely ! " 
And  Ellen  is  a  little  wounded  at  the  bare  suggestion  that  she  should 
have  any  such  a  thing — her  own  phrase  in  speech  with  another  con- 
fidante next  morning. 

And  yet  Miss  Fossett  was  frightened!  And  when  the  Rector's 
voice  intercepted  the  above  colloquy  from  below,  saying,  "  Bessy, 
come  down  and  tell  Addie  what  Dr.  Pordage  said  about  Lizarann," 
it  was  because  Miss  Fossett  had  gone  to  her  very  late  refection 
quite  white,  and  had  said,  referring  to  her  visit  upstairs,  "Why, 
my  dear  Yorick,  the  little  thing's  in  a  perfect  bath  of  perspira- 
tion ! "  And  then  she  only  had  a  little  soup,  and  Cook  took  away 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  517 

the  things,  because  Rachael  had  gone  to  bed  with  a  toothache. 

However,  next  day  in  the  sunshine,  walking  through  the  fields 
with  the  children  to  pay  a  visit  to  Lizarann's  Daddy  at  Mrs.  Fox's, 
she  felt  encouraged  when  she  saw  the  little  person  running  about 
in  the  highest  spirits,  gathering  blackberries,  with  a  beautiful 
faith  that  her  Daddy  would  appreciate  them. 

"  That  wasn't  a  coft  at  all,  Teacher,"  said  Lizarann,  when  taxed 
with  coughing.  "  I  didited  it  myself." 

"Then  that  was!" 

"  Only  because  I  very  nearly  stumbled  down,"  said  Lizarann. 
She  had  a  high  colour  in  her  cheeks,  and  her  eyes  looked  very 
large,  and  her  face  wasn't  thin — only  her  fingers.  But  her  spirits 
were  all  that  could  be  desired;  so  Miss  Fossett  had  to  be  content 
with  hoping  all  would  go  well,  if  she  was  stuffed  with  preparations 
of  malt,  and  syrup  of  hypophosphites,  and  so  on.  But  how  about 
the  winter  ?  Was  there  no  possible  Tunis  ?  For  Miss  Fossett's  af- 
fection for  the  small  waif  went  any  lengths  in  projected  antidotes 
to  phthisis.  If  it  was  money  that  was  the  difficulty — well! — 
Yorick  would  have  to  get  it  from  Sir  Murgatroyd;  none  of  his 
conscientious  nonsense ! 

However,  it  might  be  all  unnecessary.  Just  look  at  the  child 
tearing  down  the  hill  with  Phoebe,  to  get  to  her  Daddy  three  min- 
utes sooner,  and  shouting  out  "  Pi-lot ! "  in  defiance  of  orders. 
And  such  an  accolade  as  she  gave  her  father  did  not  look,  at  this 
distance,  at  least,  like  either  extract  of  malt  or  hypophosphitea. 

Miss  Fossett  intended  to  make  use  of  this  visit  to  Jim  to  get 
from  him,  if  she  could,  some  information  about  the  medical  record 
of  Lizarann's  family.  She  had  the  old-fashioned  faith  that  con- 
sumption is  hereditary.  It  would  be  very  nice  to  hear  that  it  had 
never  shown  itself  among  her  little  protegee's  ancestors.  She  had 
herself  seen  very  little — almost  nothing — of  the  blind  man,  and 
was  curious  to  make  his  acquaintance,  after  hearing  so  much  of 
him  from  the  Rector. 

Jim  was  not  in  the  summer-house,  but  in  Mrs.  Fox's  kitchen 
that  opens  on  the  garden.  It  is  lucky  none  of  the  party  is  six- 
foot-six.  But  there  is  plenty  of  room,  laterally. 

Jim  has  to  remind  Lizarann  of  her  social  duties.  "  Yell  have 
to  name  the  good  lady  for  me  to  know,  little  lass."  And  Lizarann 
shouts  out  "  Teacher !  "  vehemently. 

"Miss  Fossett,  at  the  school,  you  know,  Mr.  Coupland,"  says 
the  owner  of  the  name.  "  Lizarann's  one  of  my  best  pupils,  and 
she's  going  to  get  quite  strong."  There  was  an  error  in  tact  here : 
Bhe  should  have  recollected  that  Jim  would  be  a  stranger  to  the 


518  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

medical  discussions  over  his  child's  lungs.  A  slight  misgiving 
crossed  her  mind. 

"  Quite  strong — the  lassie  ?  Aye,  to  be  sure !  "  says  Jim  in  a 
puzzled  sort  of  way.  But  the  lassie  herself  supersedes  the  point, 
doing  violence  to  the  conversation.  "  So's  Daddy's  leg,"  she  says, 
wrenching  in  a  topic  of  greater  importance.  "Daddy's  going  to 
walk  on  it,  quite  strong,  more  than  free  miles,  and  no  scrutches. 
Yass!" 

Certainly  no  conversation  such  as  Miss  Fossett  wished  for  would 
be  possible  as  long  as  the  children  were  here.  Consultation  with 
Mrs.  Fox  developed  a  scheme  for  their  temporary  suppression. 

Suppose  the  two  young  ladies  and  Lizarann — the  distinction  is 
always  nicely  marked — were  to  go  with  her  just  three  minutes' 
walk  up  at  the  back  of  the  house  to  see  the  swarm  of  bees  in 
Clyst's  orchard.  The  supposition  is  entertained,  and  they  go. 

Miss  Fossett  admits  to  Jim  that  she  has  covertly  sanctioned  and 
encouraged  this  move,  that  tranquillity  should  ensue.  But  she 
nearly  repented,  she  says,  when  she  heard  of  the  bees,  lest  they 
should  sting.  She  hopes  it's  all  right?  Oh  yes,  Lard  bless  her, 
that's  all  right  enough!  Jim  will  go  bail  for  the  bees.  Look,  he 
says,  at  the  many  a  chance  they've  had  to  get  a  turn  at  him  in 
his  summer-house — he  seems  to  have  appropriated  it — and  never 
gave  him  a  thought!  Besides,  Jarge  would  be  there,  and  he'd 
say  a  word  to  the  bees  and  tell  them. 

"Ye  see,  mistress,"  Jim  continued,  "it's  a  trade  with  Jarge. 
He's  a  bee-master — so  they  call  him — or  you  might  say  a  bee- 
doctor;  the  folk  round  about  send  for  him,  miles." 

"  I  want  to  talk  about  Lizarann  directly,"  said  Miss  Fossett. 
"  But  tell  me  about  George  and  the  bees." 

"  Ah,  Lizarann !  .  .  .  But  I  can  tell  about  the  bees,  and  soon 
done  with.  It  was  martal  queer  about  George,  when  he  was  a 
youngster.  The  bees  nigh  stung  him  to  death,  for  pinching  of  'em 
inside  the  deep  flowers  when  he  got  a  chance.  They  were  making 
a  mistake,  though;  for  it  wasn't  he  did  it,  but  another  young 
shaver  of  his  inches.  So  they  cast  about  for  to  make  him  some 
amends." 

"You  don't  mean  they  found  out  their  mistake?" 

"Ah,  but  I  do!  They're  a  sly  race,  and  full  of  knowledge. 
How  they  did  it  between  them  I  can't  say,  but  there  it  is ! — they've 
come  to  the  understanding.  And  what's  the  queerer  is  that  George 
himself  don't  above  half-understand  what's  said  to  him  by  a 
Christian.  It's  only  bees  he  can  tackle  I  ...  What  was  you 
kindly  going  to  say  about  Lizarann  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  519 

Miss  Fossett,  rendered  cautious  by  the  lapse  she  had  so  nearly 
made,  saw  no  way  of  approaching  the  subject  she  was  curious 
about.  So  she  chatted  on  about  Lizarann,  hoping  it  might  come 
into  their  talk  accidentally.  Jim  was  eloquent  about  his  gratitude 
for  all  that  had  been  done  for  himself  and  his  child.  "  But  for 
you  and  the  master,"  said  he,  "  I'd  have  been  selling  matches  in 
the  streets  still.  That  was  before  my  accident.  But  you  won't 
say  anything  of  that  to  my  lassie."  His  hearer  understood  him. 
No — she  would  say  nothing  of  his  begging  days  to  Lizarann.  He 
thanked  her  again.  "  But,"  he  added,  "  I  wish  you  and  the  Rector- 
gentleman  could  have  seen  me  eight  year  agone — no! — barely 
seven  year.  I  might  have  been  grateful  to  some  kind  of  purpose 
then.  I'm  little  use  now !  "  Pride  without  a  trace  of  vanity  was 
in  his  voice  as  he  added:  "There  was  a  fine  man  in  my  place 
in  those  days,  and  you'd  ha'  said  so,  lady."  The  waste  remnant 
was  speaking  of  its  former  self. 

Adeline  Fossett  succeeded  in  none  of  the  things  she  tried  to  say. 
It  did  not  matter.  He  would  be  sure  to  talk  of  the  past,  and  she 
would  glean  all  she  wanted.  He  took  for  granted,  as  part  of  the 
conversation  in  the  interim,  the  fact  of  his  wife's  death. 

"  That  was  it,  ye  see :  her  mother  died.  She  would  have  been 
the  eldest." 

"  I  understand.  The  little  one  herself  told  me  of  your  accident, 
and  how  you  came  back  ..." 

"Aha! — my  little  lass!  In  coorse  she  would  tell  it!  And  she 
told  about  the  Flying  Dutchman,  I'll  go  bail."  Jim  laughed  joy- 
ously at  the  image  his  mind  formed  of  Lizarann  telling  her  in- 
herited legend  dramatically.  As  to  the  incredulity,  he  knew  it 
would  exist  in  some  minds ;  so  let  it  pass !  "  I  came  back,  lady," 
he  continued,  "  and  I  found  Lizarann.  But  I  was  all  in  the  dark, 
and  no  sight  of  my  wife's  face.  And  there  was  no  hiding  it  from 
her  about  my  eyes — no  chance !  I  never  ought  to  have  gone  a-nigh 
the  house.  But  she  might  have  died,  too  ..." 

"You  mean  she  would  not  have  recovered,  perhaps,  if  you  had 
stopped  away." 

"  Ah — if  I  had,  ever  so  1  But  I  was  mazed  with  the  longing  to 
hear  my  girl's  voice  again,  and  maybe  I  never  gave  her  the  thought 
I  should  have  done.  I  was  a  bad  young  man  in  those  days,  and 
suited  myself  when  I  might  have  done  others  a  turn,  many's  the 
time.  It's  over  and  done  with  now."  And  his  old  self  had  van- 
ished with  it;  so  completely  that  the  voice  of  its  derelict,  now 
speaking,  had  no  consciousness  in  it  of  the  way  his  narrative  af- 
fected his  hearers,  as  he  continued,  replying  to  a  word  of  inquiry 


520  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

from  her :  "  My  accident — ye'll  have  heard  all  that  from  the  las- 
sie? My  mates,  they  got  me  off  to  the  Hospital,  and  the  doctor 
there,  he  dressed  my  face.  And,  do  ye  know,  mistress,  it  wasn't 
till  the  dressings  and  strappings  was  removed  I  knew  that  I  was 
blind.  Nor  my  mates.  And  they  had  to  tell  me — mind  you! — 
that  the  last  strap  was  off.  I  couldn't  have  guessed  it.  I  was 
thinking  I  should  see.  But  it  was  all  dark,  and  the  doctor,  he 
says :  '  Sorry  for  you,  my  lad,  but  the  sight's  gone.  Ask  'em  in 
London;  they'll  tell  you  the  same.'  So  my  mates,  they  brought 
me  away;  and  there  was  the  sun,  by  the  heat.  But  I  could  only  see 
black,  and  I  judged  the  doctor  would  be  in  the  right  of  it,  in  the 
end.  My  mate  Peter  Cortright,  he  says,  '  Never  you  fret,  Jim ; 
it'll  all  come  right.  Give  'em  a  week  or  so,  and  wear  a  pair  o* 
blue  spectacles  a  while,  and  you'll  soon  be  forgetting  all  about  it/ 
So  I  says  to  him,  'What  did  old  Sam  Nuttall  say  ten  days 
a-gone?'" 

"  What  did  Peter  say  ? "  asked  Miss  Fossett. 

"Well,  ye  see,  Peter,  he  knew!  My  ship's  owners,  out  at  Cape 
Town,  they  were  sorry,  but  in  course  no  responsibility  lay  with 
them.  I'd  myself  to  blame.  They  gave  me  my  passage  home,  and 
home  I  came,  in  the  dark !  Aboard  of  an  old  screw-collier  from 
Liverpool,  one  o'  the  sart  they  call  '  tramps.'  Not  fit  for  sarvice, 
and  underhanded.  And  on  to  that  dysentery,  and  half  the  crew 
down  in  their  berths,  doctorin'  each  other  the  best  they  might. 
Well! — I'll  tell  ye."  Jim  seems  amused  at  this  narration.  "I 
was  passing  the  time  nigh  to  the  binnacle,  where  the  master  and 
a  young  man  with  a  fractured  arm  were  steering  at  the  wheel ;  for 
the  rudder-chains,  they'd  fouled  and  got  jammed,  and  there  was 
nothing  for  it  but  to  run  a  file  through  'em  and  free  the  rudder, 
so  they  could  work  the  starn-wheel,  kept  as  a  resarve.  Ye 
see  ?  .  .  .  Well ! — the  master,  he'd  been  thirty-eight  hours  at  it, 
and  he  just  gave  out.  So  I  made  bold  to  suggest  he  should  go  to 
his  berth,  and  I  should  put  a  bit  of  force  on  the  handles,  and 
young  O'Keeffe — that  was  the  young  man's  name — had  a  pair  of 
eyes  in  his  head,  and  we'd  make  it  out  between  the  two  of  us. 
'Keep  her  off  two  points  when  you  see  the  flashlight,'  says  the 
master,  and  off  he  goes  to  his  berth.  And  from  then  on,  mistress, 
ye'll  believe  I  did  a  stroke  of  work  at  that  wheel,  just  clapping  on 
at  the  given  word.  But  that's  the  last  bit  of  work,  to  call  work, 
ever  I  did,  or  ever  I  shall  do  this  side  o'  the  grave."  Jim's  voice 
rang  its  saddest  note  till  now,  over  the  dire  knowledge  that  had 
come  to  him  that  the  joy  of  work  could  never  be  his  again. 

Miss  Fossett  thought,  in  the  silence  that  followed,  that  Jim  was 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  521 

dwelling  on  thoughts  of  old  times  brought  back  by  his  old  story. 
The  fact  was  that  her  unfortunate  reference  to  Lizarann  "  getting 
quite  strong "  had  been  slowly  gathering  force  in  a  mind  that 
found  it  hard  to  receive,  and  was  beginning  to  call  aloud  for  ex- 
planation. He  began  uneasily :  "  When  you  mentioned,  lady,  just 
now  ..."  and  stopped. 

She  saw  what  he  meant,  and  saved  him  further  words.  "  About 
Lizarann's  health  ?  "  she  said. 

"  Ah !     Is  anything  amiss  ?  " 

"Oh  no — nothing  amiss!"  She  had  begun  too  confidently. 
She  had  to  retract  somewhat.  But  there  was  nothing  to  cause  the 
least  uneasiness.  A  fatal  word  that!  She  saw  its  marked  effect 
on  Jim,  and,  though  she  felt  about  for  some  reassuring  phrase 
that  would  not  suggest  the  question,  "  Why  reassure  ? "  she  found 
nothing  she  felt  confident  of  getting  to  the  end  of  successfully. 
When  she  did  begin,  Jim  cut  her  short: 

"Are  ye  keeping  something  back  from  me,  lady?"  His  voice 
was  firm  and  collected. 

Adeline  Fossett  saw  that  it  would  have  to  be  told  in  the  end, 
and  Jim  would  have  to  bear  it.  Better  to  rely  on  his  manhood,  but 
make  the  least  of  it.  She  replied  with  what  was  effectively  an  ad- 
mission that  something  had  been  kept  back.  She  said  that  the 
Rector  had  wanted  to  tell  Jim  the  whole  story  at  once,  and  ex- 
actly what  the  doctor  had  said,  but  Miss  Caldecott  had  dissuaded 
him.  What  the  doctor  had  said  came  to  no  more  than  this — that 
the  child  would  want  a  good  deal  of  care  while  she  was  growing. 
This  phrase,  which  she  had  invented  for  the  occasion,  seemed  good 
to  her;  it  implied  such  confidence  that  Lizarann  would  grow.  She 
decided  against  repeating  the  doctor's  exact  phrase,  "  She'll  out- 
grow it  with  care — oh  yes! "  as  it  seemed  to  her  somehow  weaker, 
as  a  hopeful  expression. 

Jim  was  very  silent  over  it,  and  Miss  Fossett  felt  that  nothing 
would  be  gained  by  fragmentary  attempts  to  soften  her  main  fact. 
Having  said  it,  best  leave  it  to  be  looked  in  the  face.  If  it  could 
be  safely  diluted,  the  Rector's  testimony  could  be  relied  on  to  do 
that  later.  Rather  than  dwell  on  the  subject,  she  preferred  to  won- 
der why  the  bee-inspection  was  so  long  on  hand. 

"I'm  thinking  maybe  the  young  folk  are  too  many  for  the  old 
mother,"  said  Jim.  "But  I  doubt  we  shall  hear  the  lassie  sing 
out  one  o'  these  minutes."  Then  he  went  on  quietly  asking  ques- 
tions about  Lizarann;  as  how  long  had  the  "uneasiness"  been 
felt;  to  which  the  true  answer,  which  was  not  given,  would  have 
been,  "  from  the  beginning."  For  Dr.  Ferris's  stethoscope  had  not 


522  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

given  an  absolutely  clean  bill  to  the  child's  left  lung.  Then,  what 
did  the  Rector  himself  really  think  ?  "  Would  he  be  minded  to  tell 
me  himself,  if  I  made  bold  to  ask  him  ? "  said  Jim. 

"  Tell  you  at  once,  of  course !  "  said  Miss  Fossett.  "  He  would 
have  talked  about  it  before,  only  he  didn't  want  to  alarm  you. 
Next  time  you  see  him,  ask  him."  This  was  much  the  best  line 
to  go  on.  But  it  was  rather  a  relief  when  the  bee-party  came  back, 
elevated  by  natural  history,  and  anxious  to  impart  new  discoveries. 
"I  never  did  shouted  out  ' Pi-lot/"  said  Lizarann,  "because 
Teacher  said  not  to."  And  she  was  rather  offensively  vainglorious 
over  this  achievement,  referring  to  it  more  than  once. 

When  Miss  Fossett  returned  to  the  Rectory,  she  said  to  Athelstan 
Taylor :  "  A  nice  mess  I've  made  of  it,  Yorick ! " 

Said  Yorick  then,  laughing:  "What's  the  rumpus?" 

"  I've  told  Jim  Coupland  about  Lizarann's  chest." 

"  Hm-hm-hm !  Ah  well ! — he's  got  to  know.  How  did  he  take 
it?" 

"Very  well— but  ..." 

"But,  of  course!  Never  mind,  Addie.  Don't  you  fret.  I'm 
going  round  that  way  after  lunch,  and  I'll  call  and  see  Jim." 

This  was  about  a  month  after  Challis  and  his  wife  parted.  But 
is  it  necessary  to  synchronize  the  events  of  the  story  so  closely? 


CHAPTER  XLI 

HOW  JIM  FOUND  A  MISSION  IN  LIFE,  AND  LIZARANN  MOVED  TO  MRS. 
FORKS'S  COTTAGE.  OF  A  FINE  AUTUMN,  AND  HOW  ALL  WAS  RIGHT  TILL 
SOMETHING  WENT  WRONG.  OF  A  SEASIDE  SCHEME,  AND  ITS  EFFECTS 
ON  JIM 

IF  you  stand  up  at  the  rifle-butts  when  they  are  not  shooting, 
and  look  away  from  Royd  village  towards  the  Hall,  you  will  see 
a  sharp  curve  in  the  road,  maybe  a  mile  from  Mrs.  Fox's  cottage 
on  your  left.  You  will  identify  that  by  the  little  shop  built  out 
from  it  towards  the  road,  and  the  covered  arbour  where  Jim 
smoked  his  pipe,  over  a  year  ago  now  at  the  date  of  the  story. 
He  continues  to  do  so  when  not  professionally  employed.  For 
Jim  found  an  employment,  strange  to  say,  shortly  after  he  talked 
to  Adeline  Fossett  about  Lizarann's  health,  and  got  his  first  scare 
about  his  little  lass. 

It  is  just  within  that  curve  of  the  road  that  his  vocation  is 
plied.  Not  for  gain — nothing  so  low  as  that!  His  is  an  official 
appointment,  in  the  gift  of  the  Rector  of  Royd,  and  there  is  a 
parish  fund  of  ij  shillings  a  month,  with  the  additional  emolument 
of  a  fat  capon  at  Christmas,  for  the  man  at  the  well-head.  The 
Charity  Commissioners  have  never  found  it  out;  and  the  Rector 
has  long  since  appropriated  the  fund,  and  turned  it  into  four 
shillings,  with  appendices  and  addenda;  while  a  composition  has 
been  effected  in  the  matter  of  the  capon,  the  holder  of  the  office 
receiving  instead  as  much  barker  as  is  good  for  him,  all  the  year 
round,  whether  actively  employed  or  not.  For  the  employment 
Jim  had  the  luck  to  step  into  is  one  that  may  have  to  be  suspended 
during  hard  winter  weather,  being,  in  fact,  the  turning  of  the 
well-handle  whenever  applicants  come  for  water. 

It  was  through  Miss  Fossett  hearing  that  tale  of  Jim's,  about 
how  his  blind  strength  had  come  in  so  mighty  handy  in  that  steer- 
age business  aboard  of  the  undermanned  coal-tramp.  She  recol- 
lected it  when,  on  the  afternoon  of  next  day,  it  came  out  that  the 
office  of  water-drawer  was  vacant,  the  last  man  at  the  well-head 
having  retired  at  eighty-seven  years  of  age.  Not  that  he  had 
turned  the  handle  himself  for  a  long  time  past.  He  had  only 

523 


524  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

given  official  sanction  to  the  efforts  of  customers;  who,  when  very 
small,  had  to  way-ut  till  soombody  else  coom  for  t'  wa-ater.  Ob- 
viously, Jim  was  made  for  the  place,  and  the  place  fcr  Jim.  And 
he — poor  chap ! — for  whom  all  personal  life  had  merged  in  solid 
gloom  and  hampered  movement,  felt  like  the  prisoner  in  solitary 
confinement  whom  the  boy  threw  his  pegtop  and  string  to,  through 
the  bars. 

It  is  hardly  a  fair  comparison,  though,  for  the  lonely  gaol-bird 
had  to  spin  his  top  with  never  a  soul  to  speak  to,  day  or  night,  and 
Jim  had  constant  intercourse  with  his  species;  for  as  soon  as  the 
cottagers  round  became  alive  to  the  fact  that  they  could  send  little 
Mary  or  Sally  with  a  pail  to  t'  wa'all,  with  a  reasonable  chance  of 
return  in  half-an-hour,  his  services  were  in  constant  requisition. 
Royd  village  is  at  least  five  hundred  feet  higher  than  Grime;  and 
the  light  soil,  though  good  for  the  beech-woods,  is  bad  for  the 
water-supply.  That  is  why  the  Abbey  Well,  so-called,  has  a  clear 
bucket-shoot  of  fifty  fathoms  before  it  strikes  the  water.  So,  even 
in  answer  to  Jim's  effective  appeals,  the  supply  came  slowly;  and 
there  was  plenty  of  time,  before  the  responsible  bucket  came  in 
sight,  to  hear  family  history  from  Mary  or  Sally,  or  the  latest 
news  from  seniors  with  two  large  pails  stirruped  on  a  shoulder- 
saddle. 

Besides,  there  was  Jim's  chief  resource,  to  which  all  these  were 
as  nothing.  There  was  his  little  lass.  Whenever  she  was  not 
complying  with  the  Education  Act,  and  whenever  the  weather  per- 
mitted, the  child  was  pretty  sure  to  be  with  her  father  in  the  little 
semi-enclosure,  half-hidden  by  hawthorns,  where  the  well  with  its 
interesting  parclose — some  of  it  as  old  as  the  thirteenth  century, 
if  you  choose — tempts  the  passing  excursionist  to  stop  and  be  anti- 
quarian for  five  minutes;  and  to  put  a  little  jewel  of  a  memory 
in  some  close  corner  of  his  brain,  to  be  found  there  on  a  winter's 
night  in  the  days  to  come,  when  all  the  excursions  are  over  and  the 
merry  year  is  dead. 

The  fine  warm  months  that  followed  Jim's  entry  on  his  duties 
were  surely  the  halcyon  months  of  his  broken  life.  Because  for  all 
that  he  and  Lizarann,  with  a  sort  of  ex-post-facto  optimism,  had 
decided  to  construct  an  image  of  a  glorious  past  from  their 
memories  of  Bladen  Street  and  Tallack  Street,  misgiving  of  the 
soundness  of  its  materials  would  creep  into  his  mind,  at  least; 
never  to  the  child's.  That  image  was  all  beaten  gold  and  ivory 
to  her.  Tallack  Street,  that  would  have  seemed  to  you.  and  me  a 
sordid  avenue  of  hovels,  grudgingly  complying  with  a  Building 
Act,  and  enclosing  imperfectly  a  rich  atmosphere  of  Lower  Middle 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  525 

Class  families,  was  to  Lizarann  an  illuminated  stage  on  which 
moved  the  majestic  figures  of -the  heroes  of  her  past,  into  which 
flitted  at  intervals  visions  of  delights  now  extinct:  organs  with  a 
monkey,  that  played  slow,  not  to  tax  the  nervous  system  of  their 
obsessor;  organs  without,  that  played  quick,  so  you  could  dance 
to  it — played  music-hall  airs  that  had  three  phases  apiece,  and 
lent  themselves  to  being  done  over  and  over  again,  and  nobody  any 
fault  to  find;  the  man  with  the  drum  that  couldn't  raise  his  voice 
to  holler,  and  potatoes  he  run  out  of  unless  you  looked  sharp;  and, 
above  all,  that  pre-Wagnerian  contrivance  without  a  name,  that 
you  could  set  on  and  go  round  for  a  halfpenny  all  through  the 
tune,  and  no  cheating — so  "  Home,  Sweet  Home "  was  more  pop- 
ular than  the  National  Anthem,  along  of  the  hextry  at  the  end. 
And  the  highroad  itself,  that  took  two  policemen  to  get  them  chil- 
dren safe  acrost  after  Board-School!  What  a  scene  of  maddening 
— more  than  Parisian — gaiety  it  was  Saturday  nights !  And  what 
a  mysterious  antechamber  to  some  Institution  undefined,  but  with 
a  flavour  of  Trinity  House  or  the  Vatican,  was  that  corner  where 
it  was  wrote  up,  "  Vatted  Rum,  fivepence-half  penny !  " 

Jim  lent  himself,  you  may  be  sure,  to  gilding  these  remnants  of 
bygone  glory,  whatever  doubts  he  may  have  felt  about  them  him- 
self. Through  that  happy  season  when  Lizarann  could  be  so  fre- 
quently his  companion — for  Dr.  Sidrophel  said  the  child  couldn't 
be  too  much  in  the  air:  it  would  do  her  good  rather  than  other- 
wise— recollections  of  Tallack  Street  and  Vatted  Rum  Corner  rang 
the  changes  on  tales  of  the  high-seas  and  the  Flying  Dutchman. 
Lizarann  had  never  seen  the  sea!  Wouldn't  she  just  like  to  it! 
Patience!  Lizarann  was  to  see  the  sea  in  time. 

Her  domicile  at  the  Rectory  came  to  an  end  a  week  or  so  after 
her  Daddy  got  his  appointment.  It  had  begun  with  what  was  in- 
tended to  be  a  stay  long  enough  to  get  rid  of  that  bad  inflammatory 
cold  caught  in  London;  had  been  prolonged  at  the  petition  of 
Phoebe  and  Joan  till  that  half-a-mile-off  tea-party  at  Royd  Park. 
After  this  it  consisted  of  postponements,  due  to  reluctance  that 
she  should  run  risks  from  moving  till  quite  strong  again,  but 
growing  shorter  and  shorter  as  Dr.  Pordage  laid  more  and  more 
stress  on  the  definite  character  of  the  chest-delicacy,  and  the  mod- 
ern belief  in  its  communicability.  And  the  fact  was  that  Aunt 
Bessy,  and,  indeed,  the  Rector,  were  not  a  little  ill  at  ease  about 
the  constant  association  of  the  children.  The  Rector  tried  to 
fence  with  his  own  uneasiness,  and  made  but  a  poor  show. 

"  7  don't  know ! "  said  he  to  his  sister-in-law.  "  Only  a  few 
years  since  doctors  were  treating  the  idea  with  derision.  Now 


526  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

it's  all  the  other  way.    You  never  know  where  to  have  'em — 
never  1 " 

"  Do  as  you  like,  Athel !  But  I'm  for  being  on  the  safe  side,  if 
you  ask  me."  And  the  Rector  was  obliged  to  admit  to  himself  that 
accepting  the  advice  that  enjoins  caution  is  a  very  different  thing 
from  running  a  risk  on  permission  given.  The  doctor  said  that 
if  all  disorders  were  accounted  infectious  until  the  contrary  was 
shown  to  be  the  case,  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  public,  but 
a  bad  one  for  the  profession  and  the  bacilli.  A  man  must  live. 
So  must  a  bacillus,  from  his  point  of  view. 

Discussion  was  afoot  at  one  time  about  the  possibility  of  send- 
ing Lizarann  to  Tunis,  where  the  ex-incumbent  of  St.  Vulgate's 
would  take  her  in  hand  and  look  after  her.  He  was  sending 
highly-coloured  reports  of  his  own  progress.  But  these  schemes 
never  fructified.  The  fact,  though  it  was  admitted,  that  it  would 
have  been  an  excessive  interpretation  of  Samaritan  good-nature 
had  less  to  do  with  their  rejection  than  the  inevitable  separation 
of  the  child  from  her  father.  "  She'll  never  come  back  to  Eng- 
land if  she  goes,"  said  Dr.  Sidrophel;  meaning  that  she  would 
only  be  safe  in  Africa  if  she  did  outgrow  her  symptoms.  But 
would  she  be  sure  to  outgrow  them? — said  Athelstan  Taylor,  Miss 
Fossett,  and  Miss  Caldecott,  all  at  once.  "  That's  more  than  I 
would  swear  to,"  said  the  doctor.  It  was  a  relief,  because  you 
know  what  a  stiff  job  this  sending  patients  abroad  is.  Most  of  us  do. 

But,  short  of  sending  Lizarann  to  be  nursed  in  an  anti- 
tubercular  climate,  everything  was  done  for  her  that  could  have 
been  done  in  Samaria  itself,  with  additions  up-to-date,  such  as 
ozone,  peptone,  hypophosphites,  and  several  other  "ites"  and 
«  ones." 

So  dexterously  was  her  removal  to  Mrs.  Fox's  cottage  brought 
about  that  neither  she  nor  her  Daddy  ever  had  a  suspicion  of  the 
truth.  Obviously,  so  everyone  thought,  the  reason  was  that  she 
should  guide  her  Daddy  to  the  well-head  every  morning  before 
going  to  school,  and  bring  him  back  in  the  evening.  Lizarann's 
rejoicing  over  her  importance  made  up  to  her  for  her  separation 
from  Phoebe  and  Joan.  The  whole  manoeuvre  was  executed  with- 
out a  mishap,  and  Lizarann  started  in  the  summer  weather  to  in- 
stall her  Daddy  in  safety,  and  to  return  for  him  in  the  course  of 
the  afternoon,  duly  calling  out  "Pi-lot!"  at  a  chosen  point. 
Phoebe  and  Joan  gave  her  up  with  reluctance,  but  acknowledged 
the  force  of  the  reasons  for  the  change.  They  were  plausible. 

Mrs.  Fox  put  her  to  sleep  in  a  sweet  little  room  under  the 
thatch,  with  a  lattice-window  you  could  stand  open  and  hear  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  527 

wind  in  the  trees  all  night.  And  a  bed  with  a  white  tester  and  a 
fringe,  and  a  white  vallance  all  round  underneath.  Only  the  cur- 
tains were  chintz,  with  roses  done  on  them,  shiny-like;  and  the 
counterpane  was  made  of  pieces  of  everything  sewn  together. 
Wherever  anyone  could  have  got  'em  all  from  Lizarann  couldn't 
think. 

From  underneath  which  counterpane  the  occupant  of  that  bed 
continued  an  early  riser  throughout  those  three  satisfactory 
months.  Because  Lizarann  had  nothing  the  matter  with  her. 
Ridiculous!  Why  shouldn't  she  cough  if  she  chose?  That  was 
her  view.  And  why  shouldn't  she  go  to  the  window  to  see  how  the 
sunflower  was  getting  on!  The  sunflower  grew  on  a  giant  plant 
that  had  shot  up  flush  with  the  roof — a  record  in  growth.  Lizar- 
ann looked  out  at  it  every  morning,  and  wondered  how  big  ever 
was  it  going  to  get.  She  didn't  know  which  she  liked  best,  the 
back  or  the  front  of  that  sunflower.  Sunflower-backs  are  very 
fascinating. 

She  had  a  little  triumph  over  her  Daddy  and  Mrs.  Forks  about 
that  window.  For  they  belonged  to  the  old  school  of  nursing, 
which  went  for  suffocation,  and  had  told  her  not  to  go  to  the 
window  at  six  in  the  morning  in  her  nightgown.  Dr.  Sidrophel, 
when  appealed  to,  said :  "  Hurt  you  to  go  to  the  open  window  ? 
Not  a  bit  of  it !  More  open  windows  the  better ! "  So  Lizarann 
kept  on  looking  out  at  it  until  the  rime  frostis  come  in  October; 
and  then  Jarge  coot  it  off  for  her,  not  too  high  up  to  the  coop, 
and  Lizarann's  prevision  that  it  would  be  as  big  as  her  head  was 
shown  to  be  very,  very  far  short  of  truth. 

"  There,  now,  Daddy,"  said  the  convalescent,  on  her  way  to  the 
well,  with  her  convoy  in  tow,  after  Dr.  Sidrophel  had  endorsed  the 
views  of  the  new  school  so  vigorously.  "Dr.  Spiderophel  said  I 
was-s-s-s-S  quite  well ! "  The  climax  of  a  prolonged  sibilant, 
crescendo,  burst  like  a  shell  against  the  coming  initial,  and  stung 
its  adverb  to  vigorous  action. 

"  Who  said  you  warn't,  lassie  ?  "  said  her  father,  affecting  indig- 
nation. 

"Phoebe  and  Jones.  And  Mr.  Yorick,  he's  always  for  asking 
what  did  the  doctor  said." 

"Vary  right  and  proper,  little  lass!  Wouldn't  ye  have  him 
know?  Nay-tur-ally,  such  a  good  gentleman  likes  to  know  you're 
well.  That's  where  the  enquiring  comes  in.  He'd  be  martal  sorry 
to  hear  the  lassie  was  ill.  What  do  ye  make  out  the  young  ladies 
said  ? "  Jim's  tactics  of  raising  false  issues  were  compatible  with 
an  attempt  at  a  side-light  on  public  opinion. 


528  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"Phoebe  and  Jones  said — nurse  said — Dr.  Spiderophel  said" — 
here  concentration  became  necessary — "  that  simpsons  was  favour- 
able, but  to  continue  the  medicine  two  stable-spoonfuls  free  times 
a  day."  She  then  corrected  herself,  as  though  the  pronunciation 
might  vitiate  the  treatment.  "  No ! — three  times  a  day."  And 
added  corroboratively,  "  Yass !  " 

Jim  knew  that  the  sky-sign  of  an  engineering  firm  in  the  neigh- 
bourhood of  Tallack  Street  was  responsible  for  a  confusion  of  the 
little  lass's  ideas,  or  at  least  speech.  He  accepted  the  name,  to 
escape  discussion,  saying:  "If  Simpson's  is  favourable,  and  the 
medecine's  nice,  what  more  can  a  lassie  want?  In  coorse  you're 
quite  well,  with  such  like  medecine.  When  little  lass's  medecine's 
nasty,  that's  when  they're  ill." 

Optimism  in  any  form  was  welcome  on  such  an  autumn  morn- 
ing, with  such  a  many  larks  afloat  in  the  blue  above  the  shorn 
stubble-fields — more  songs  than  Lizarann  could  count,  in  token  of 
a  million  more  unheard — and  the  Royd  church-bell  striking  seven 
a  mile  off,  and  some  sheepbells  making  it  difficult  to  hear  if  it 
struck  right;  and  the  same  bees  as  last  month  making  the  same 
noise  about  an  entirely  new  supply  of  honey.  Besides,  Daddy  had 
to  be  guided  through  the  sheep,  who  were  filling  up  the  road  on 
ahead,  and  repeating  themselves  sadly,  though  in  a  variety  of  keys. 
Sheep  ought  never  to  come  in  the  opposite  direction,  because  no 
dog  can  influence  them  to  leave  other  people  space  to  pass.  This 
time  they  would  have  been  enough  alone  to  knock  medical  dis- 
cussion on  the  head,  even  if  there  had  been  no  other  distracting 
combinations. 

During  just  that  fine  perfect  autumn  time  no  one  who  was  not 
in  the  confidence  of  that  useless  implement  of  Dr.  Sidrophel's,  that 
you  could  neither  play  on  nor  see  through,  would  have  picked  out 
Lizarann  as  a  patient  at  all.  The  change  came  with  the  chill  of 
the  year.  Not  the  first  morning  frost  of  all ;  that,  when  it  scatters 
diamond  drift,  every  speck  of  which  means  to  be  a  mirror  to  the 
great  sun  it  knows  is  coming — coming  from  beyond  the  Eastern 
red,  to  quench  the  glow  of  the  Morning  Star — is  but  a  fall  of  tem- 
perature, with  repentance  to  follow.  It  is  all  right  again  after 
breakfast.  But  the  real  chill  of  the  year  comes  soon — too  soon! 
And  then  there  is  sunshine  at  Westminster;  and  it's  going  to  snow, 
and  does  it.  And  you  have  fires,  and  catch  cold. 

It  all  happened  just  as  usTial  that  year.  Only  something  had 
gone  wrong  with  Lizarann.  She  was  no  longer  the  Lizarann  of 
Tallack  Street,  to  whom  the  first  frost  that  meant  business,  the 
first  fog  that  meant  to  interrupt  it,  the  first  fire  we  did  without 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  529 

and  the  first  we  didn't — a  day  or  five  minutes  later,  according  to  our 
powers  of  endurance — were  one  and  all  mere  annual  incidents, 
fraught  with  holly  and  mistletoe  and  intensification  of  butchers. 
In  those  days  Lizarann's  greeting  to  winter  was  to  go  out  in  the 
snow  and  avail  herself  of  it  as  ammunition,  or  develope  it  as  slides. 
In  these,  as  often  as  not  it  was  doubtful  whether  she  would  be  al- 
lowed out  at  all.  And  even  if  it  was  only  to  the  little  school- 
room near  the  church,  not  unless  she  was  wropt  up  real  careful, 
and  her  red  woollen  comforter  round  and  round  and  round,  like 
that.  The  way  was  never  so  in  Tallack  Street. 

Lizarann  herself  confused  between  cause  and  effect.  She 
ascribed  her  cough  to  mixtures,  and  a  place  in  her  chest,  that 
prevented  her  coughing  and  done  with  it,  to  its  location  by  that 
malign  little  stethoscope.  It  was  either  that  or  the  linseed  meal 
of  Teacher's  careful  slow  poulticing  that  had  done  it  all.  She  con- 
sidered that  the  linseed  meal  had  penetrated  through  that  vermilion 
disc  on  the  area  she  called  her  chest,  which  had  afforded  her  such 
unmixed  amusement  seen  in  Miss  Fossett's  little  hand-mirror. 
She  was  haunted  by  the  flavour  of  that  linseed  meal;  was  con- 
vinced it  had  got  through  and  stuck.  But  these  were  views  she 
kept  to  herself.  She  tolerated  the  strange  scientific  fancies  and 
fallacies  of  the  grown-up  world,  recognizing  in  them  the  benev- 
olence of  its  intentions. 

But  the  something  that  had  gone  wrong  never  made  any  real 
concession.  It  seemed  to  have  made  up  its  mind  which  direction 
it  would  take,  and  jogged  on  without  remorse.  Now  and  again  it 
may  have  sat  down  by  the  roadside,  and  set  the  credulous  a-think- 
ing  that  it  might  turn  back  and  start  again  and  go  right;  but  it 
always  went  on  again  refreshed  in  the  end.  Sometimes  it  trav- 
elled slowly — came  to  a  hill,  perhaps?  But  the  road  was  a  give- 
and-take  road,  only  just  a  little  more  downhill  than  up.  It  always 
is,  in  this  complaint. 

Dr.  Sidrophel  gave  the  Rector  very  little  hope  of  any  real  suc- 
cess. He  did  not  say  the  child  would  die.  Nobody  ever  says 
that.  He  only  said  she  would  never  make  old  bones.  He  prob- 
ably thought  her  skeleton  would  not  reach  its  teens.  He  continued 
the  treatment;  was  in  favour  of  plenty  of  air,  plenty  of  nourish- 
ment, the  last  new  chemical  elixir  vita — wasn't  it  called  "  Malto- 
zone,"  and  didn't  every  teaspoonful  contain  an  ox  from  Argentina? 
— and  so  on.  The  cottage  smelt  of  iodine;  and  dear  old  Mrs. 
Fox's  lozenges,  whick  had  been  active  in  the  early  stages  of  the 
complaint,  had  to  die  away  before  the  new  agencies  and  real  pre- 
scriptions that  had  to  go  to  the  village  apothecary  to  be  made  up. 


530  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Even  so  the  parish  engine,  that  the  fire  took  no  notice  of,  has  to 
give  way  to  the  brigade  from  the  nearest  station.  If  only  the 
metaphor  would  hold  good  a  little  farther!  If  only  the  parallel 
could  be  found  for  the  efficiency  of  the  waterblast  that  comes  so 
swiftly  on  the  heels  of  their  arrival — steam  at  high-pressure  pant- 
ing to  show  its  elasticity  to  advantage — blood-horses  that  have 
touched  the  last  speed-record — serpent-coils  of  hose  that  mean 
salvation;  if  only  the  latest  rescue-powers  of  Science  were  en  all 
fours  with  these!  But  .  .  .  Well! — we  must  hope. 

When  Sir  Rhyscombe  Edison,  the  great  London  physician,  paid 
a  visit  to  the  Hall  just  before  the  Family  started  to  go  abroad — 
no  one  was  ill  there :  it  was  the  head  of  Thanes  Castle  he  was  sum- 
moned to  consult  about — Lady  Arkroyd  begged  him  to  overhaul  a 
little  patient  she  and  the  Rector  were  interested  in.  He  made  as 
careful  an  examination  of  Lizarann  as  he  had  done  of  the  Duke; 
was  as  encouraging  to  the  one  patient  about  her  chest  as  he  had 
been  to  the  other  about  his  hemiplegia;  and  was  nearly  as  explicit 
in  his  second  verdict  to  her  ladyship  and  the  Rector  as  he  had 
been  in  his  first  to  the  family  at  Thanes.  It  was  a  well-marked 
characteristic  case,  but  one  lung  was  free,  so  far;  and  as  long  as 
that  was  so  the  duration — by  which  he  meant  the  duration  of  the 
patient — was  a  thing  the  ablest  pathologist  in  the  world  could  not 
pronounce  upon.  The  little  thing  might  live  to  be  an  old  woman 
— at  Davos.  He  instanced  cases  of  one-lung  life  in  the  high  Alps 
going  on  to  old  age.  But  in  England,  no !  .  .  .  Still,  she  might 
go  on  for  a  year  or  so.  Sea-air  would  be  the  best  thing.  Any- 
where on  the  south  coast. 

Do  not  suppose  that  any  means  were  left  undiscussed  that  could 
be  reasonably  entertained  of  sending  Lizarann  to  live  by  the  sea. 
The  higher  Alps  did  not  come  into  practical  politics.  But  there 
were  sea-possibilities.  Inquiry  discovered  nursing  homes,  havens 
of  convalescence,  where  a  very  moderate  payment  would  obtain  sea- 
breezes  and  good  food  and  medical  supervision  for  a  patient  either 
curable  or  doomed — either  would  do.  But  the  separation  of  the 
child  from  her  father  would  have  been  almost  inevitable.  The 
thing  worked  out  so;  all  details  would  want  too  much  telling.  Be- 
sides, Lizarann's  friends  flinched  from  sending  her  to  live  among 
"cases"  confessed  and  palpable.  It  had  too  much  of  the  char- 
acter of  surrender.  How  could  the  truth  be  softened  to  her 
father,  if  it  came  to  that? 

It  had  come  out  through  Mrs.  Fox,  who  held  a  roving  commis- 
sion to  tell  Jim  things  gradually,  that  a  scheme  was  under  con- 
sideration for  packing  off  both  together,  father  and  daughter,  to  a 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  531 

cottage  by  the  seaside.  It  had  been  pronounced  quixotic,  and  con- 
demned, before  Mrs.  Fox  had  an  opportunity  to  report  its  effect  on 
Jim;  so  what  she  told  of  had  no  influence  in  procuring  its  rejec- 
tion. But  it  made  its  impracticability  less  to  be  regretted. 

"  It  would  just  be  like  to  carry  on,  Mr.  Coupland."  So  the  old 
woman,  extenuating  absence  from  Royd  in  any  form.  "  It  might 
be  a  bit  lonesome,  and  I  would  miss  your  pipe  of  an  evening — so  I 
tell  'ee!  But  what  is  three  months,  after  all,  when  you  come  to 
name  it  ? "  Mrs.  Fox,  with  true  tact,  ignored  the  main  evil,  the 
cause  of  the  whole,  and  chose  her  own  loss  as  the  thing  to  dwell 
upon. 

"It's  not  a  big  turnover  of  time,"  said  Jim.  A  moment  after 
he  said,  referring  back :  "  That's  very  kind  of  ye,  mother,  about 
the  pipe.  Thank  ye  kindly !  " 

"You've  no  need  to  thank  me,  Mr.  Coupland.  All  the  fill-out 
of  the  smoke's  away  up  the  big  chimney  in  the  thoroughdraf  t,  when 
there's  a  bit  of  flare  to  help  it.  I  like  to  watch  it  find  its  way. 
Summer-time  the  gap  of  the  little  window  scarcely  favours  the  let- 
ting of  it  out.  More  by  token,  too,  I  can  mind  the  many  that's 
gone,  by  the  very  smell.  My  husband,  he  would  always  have  a 
yard  o'  clay  .  .  .  ah! — that  name  he  gave  it.  ...  " 

"  I  know  ?em,  mother.     Churchwa'ardens  they  call  'em." 

"  That  sort.  And  my  Daniel,  he'd  none  of  'em,  but  just  a  cherry- 
wood.  I  can  hear  the  voices  of  them  now,  in  the  smoke." 

"  Thank  ye,  mother,  for  leave  given,  too !  But  I'd  bring  ye 
back  the  little  lass,  safe  and  sound.  Afore  the  end  o'  January 
would  be  the  time." 

"'Tis  nothing  to  speak  of.  But  this  I  do  tell  'ee,  Mr.  Coup- 
land  :  I  shall  have  a  fair  miss  of  the  little  maid,  with  her  clack." 

"  Ah — the  little  lass !  But  she'll  have  the  more  to  tell  ye,  mother, 
when  she  comes  again  in  the  spring-time.  All  set  up  and  hearty, 
hay?" 

It  was  then  that  the  dear  old  thing,  with  the  best  of  intentions, 
made  a  mistake.  She  must  needs  refer — bless  her! — to  the  length 
of  time  that  had  passed  since  ever  Jim  had  seen  the  sea.  Then, 
concerned  at  the  sound  of  the  blind  man's  "  Ah,  mother ! "  she 
misinterpreted  her  mistake,  conceiving  it  to  have  been  in  the  refer- 
ence to  sight.  Poor  old  lady !  How  hurt  she  was  when  she  found 
it  out ! 

Jim  was  equally  concerned  on  her  account.  He  understood  what 
her  thought  had  been  almost  before  she  had  begun  to  explain. 
"  Oh  no,  no,  no,  mother!  "  he  cried  out,  filling  the  little  cottage  with 
his  big  voice.  "  Never  you  think  it  was  that !  Where  should  we 


532  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

be  if  I  couldn't  bide  to  hear  a  word  about  my  own  bad  luck?  It 
don't  make  it  neither  more  nor  less,  ye  know!  And  it  might  just 
as  easy  have  been  anybody  else."  Jim's  meaning  was  that  the 
sum  of  human  misery  had  been  arranged,  and  this  tribulation  had 
to  be  borne  by  someone,  to  balance.  If  he  had  it,  someone  else 
escaped.  "  No,  no,"  he  continued ;  "  that's  not  to  be  thought  on, 
mother  I " 

But  there  had  been  a  something,  very  distinct;  and  it  was 
equally  clear  that  Mrs.  Fox  would  like  to  know  what,  without  ask- 
ing intrusively.  Besides,  Jim  wanted  to  make  that  wrong  guess  a 
thing  of  the  past.  He  would  try  to  explain  why  he  was  so  moved. 
"  It's  none  so  easy,  mother,  now  and  again,  to  say  just  what  you 
have  an  inklin'  to  say.  Not  if  the  other  party's  to  understand, 
mind  you !  But  .  .  .  did  ye  never  see  the  sea,  mother  ? "  No — 
Mrs.  Fox  had  never  seen  the  sea.  But  she  had  been  in  Worcester- 
shire, to  her  uncle's,  many  was  the  time.  Jim  declined  Worcester- 
shire, but  gently,  not  to  seem  scornful.  "It  might  be  a  far-off 
sight,"  he  said.  "  Not  like  seafaring  folk  see  it,  from  sun-up  to 
sun-up;  just  a  fair  offing  all  round  ye,  and  the  sky  overhead." 
However,  Worcestershire  had  only  been  referred  to  that  the  old 
lady  might  not  seem  quite  untravelled.  So  Jim  returned  to  his 
explanation.  u  It  was  just  a  queer  feel  I  had,"  said  he,  "  about 
the  sound  of  it  again,  after  such  a  many  years." 

Mrs.  Fox's  slip  of  the  tongue  had  given  her  a  fright,  and  she 
sat  silent.  A  log  tumbled  on  the  great  open  hearth,  and  a  shower 
of  sparks  went  up  the  chimney  to  whirl  away  in  the  wind  that  was 
roaring  down  it  about  the  cold  white  drift  of  the  winter  night. 
Jim  sat  and  thought  of  his  watches  out  upon  the  sea,  and  the  same 
wind  whistling  through  the  shrouds,  and  his  strong  arm  and  keen 
eyesight  in  the  days  gone  by.  All  gone — for  ever !  Nights  by  the 
galley-fire,  or  in  some  warm  corner  of  a  steamer's  'tween-decks, 
welcome  in  the  spells  of  look-out  duty,  when  the  look-out  was  for 
icebergs  in  the  Atlantic — the  sort  that  wait  till  a  ship  is  well  along- 
side, and  choose  a  clever  moment  to  turn  turtle  and  catch  her  in 
the  nick.  Nights  in  sailing  traders — there  are  some  left  still — 
on  a  still  sea  in  the  tropics,  with  not  a  breath  of  wind  below,  and 
strange  activity  of  meteors  in  an  unresponsive  universe  of  stars 
above.  Nights  of  battle  with  the  storm-fiend — of  whirling  spray- 
drench  and  decks  swept  by  the  torrent  of  the  crested  seas,  all 
vanished  in  the  past,  with  that  little  wicked  reason  in  between 
that  lay  in  ambush  for  Jim's  eyes  on  the  quay  at  Cape  Town,  in 
the  bunghole  of  an  oil-cask. 

And  then  the  broken  sailor  said  to  his  heart :  "  Can  we  bear  it, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  533 

you  and  I? — we  that  have  borne  so  much;  we  that  must  live  per- 
force in  dread  cf  so  much  more  still  left  to  bear;  we  that  may 
even  have  to  say  good-bye  to  the  little  voice  that  has  been  the 
stronger  half  of  our  strength  till  now?  But  this — oh,  this! — to 
stand  again  in  hearing  of  the  sea;  to  know  it  as  of  old  by  the 
endless  intermittent  rush  of  the  shoaling  beach  in  its  caress,  by  the 
music  of  the  curling  ridge  of  its  wavelets,  nearer,  nearer  to  the 
shore;  to  breathe  the  scent  of  it  in  the  landward  wind — and 
then!  .  .  .  What  then?  Just  to  go  mad  in  an  aching  void  of 
darkness,  and  cry  out  in  agony  for  but  one  glimmer  of  the  day- 
light that  has  been  once  and  shall  never  be  again,  just  one  mo- 
mentary image  of  the  living  world  that  void  can  never  know. 

Presently  Mrs.  Fox  rose,  saying  quietly,  "It's  the  remindin' 
brings  it  back,"  and  busied  herself  to  get  some  toddy  for  her 
tenant.  She  condemned  a  lemon-scrap  as  too  dry;  her  stimulated 
pity  for  poor  Jim  suggested  a  new  one  from  "  the  shop,"  and  she 
disappeared  to  get  it.  Jim  sat  on  in  the  glimmering  firelight  he 
did  not  know  from  sunshine,  thinking  of  the  sea.  He  did  not  put 
his  consolatory  pipe  down;  it  was  something,  if  not  much,  against 
thoughts  that  ran  close  on  the  lines  the  story  guessed  for  them, 
if  not  word  for  word.  But  it  could  not  stop  the  tears  that  would 
come  from  the  eyes  that  were  good  now  for  nothing  else  but  to 
shed  them. 


CHAPTER  XLII 

HOW  A  NAUGHTY  LITTLE  GIRL  CAME  OUT  IN  THE  COLD  AND  TALKED  TO 
HER  DADDY.  AND  HOW  WINTER  MADE  HER  WORSE.  OP  A  TALK 
BETWEEN  THE  RECTOR  AND  MISS  FOSSETT,  AND  A  SUGGESTION  SHE 
MADE  TO  HIM 

A  LITTLE  bare  foot  came  stealing  down  the  twisted  oak  stair  at 
the  far  end  of  the  room,  which  leads  straight  up  to  Lizarann's  eyrie 
where  Jarge  got  the  sunflower  through  the  window  for  her  not 
three  months  ago.  The  little  white  figure  in  a  nightgown  is  taller 
than  the  Lizarann  whom  we  saw,  also  in  her  nightgown,  rushing 
out  into  the  snow  last  winter  to  summon  the  police  to  Uncle  Bob. 
But  the  robust  look  of  childhood  has  given  place  to  what  is  at 
least  an  entire  unfitness  to  be  out  of  bed  in  the  cold.  If  Mrs.  Fox 
had  not  been  lemon-hunting  in  the  shop,  she  would  have  sent  the 
delinquent  back  in  double-quick  time.  Jim's  sharp  ears  caught 
the  patter  of  the  shoeless  feet. 

"  That's  the  lassie,  I  lay,"  said  he.  And  Lizarann,  who  didn't 
care,  was  on  his  knee  before  he  had  got  a  proper  reproach  ready. 
All  he  could  say  was,  "  A  little  lass  out  of  her  bed  in  the  middle 
of  the  night  1  Where's  the  police,  hay  ? "  He  affected  inability  to 
deal  with  the  case  in  the  absence  of  the  civil  authority. 

"  I  come  down  because  it  wasn't  cold,"  said  Lizarann.  "  I  come 
down  because  the  stackace  is  mide  of  wood.  I  come  down  for  to 
kiss  my  daddy  very  often."  She  did  so. 

Jim  called  to  Mrs.  Fox,  without.  "Mother!  Ahoy!  Here's  a 
young  charackter  come  out  of  her  bed  in  the  cold." 

Mrs.  Fox  testified  to  her  horror  and  surprise,  saying  substan- 
tially that,  even  in  the  most  depraved  circles  she  had  mixed  with, 
such  a  thing  as  a  little  girl  coming  out  of  bed  in  the  middle  of  the 
night  was  quite  outside  her  experience.  Jim  suggested  that  a 
blanket  would  be  useful  as  protection,  inside  which  Lizarann  could 
watch  him  through  his  toddy,  after  assisting  in  its  preparation. 
Mrs.  Fox  went  for  the  blanket. 

"'Tin't  cold,"  said  Lizarann.  "And  there  hin't  any  cold  wind 
outside  in  the  road.  Only  in  the  chimbley.  .  .  .  I'm  thicker 
than  I  was,  Daddy."  This  last  was  in  response  to  Jim's  explora- 
tions about  her  small  limbs  in  search  of  flesh.  Dr.  Sidrophel  had 

534 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  535 

been  a  little  hopeful  about  the  possible  effect  of  the  ones  and  lies, 
if  persevered  in. 

"Where's  the  flesh  you  was  going  to  put  on,  the  doctor  said? 
Hey,  lassie  ?  Sure  you  haven't  put  it  on  some  other  little  lass  ? " 

Lizarann  seemed  very  uncertain — perhaps  didn't  understand  the 
question.  "  Old  Mrs.  Willoughby,  lives  near  the  Spost-Office,"  she 
Bays,  "  medgers  eighteen  inches  round,  and  her  son  Gabriel  does 
the  horse-shoes."  This  is  not  irrelevance;  its  object  is  to  show 
that  fat  is  not  always  an  advantage.  Jim  misunderstands  its  drift, 
and  conceives  that  Mrs.  Willoughby  is  brought  forward  as  an  ex- 
ample of  slimness  and  its  robust  consequences. 

"  That's  no  great  shakes,  anyhow,"  says  he ;  "  for  round  an  old 
lady's  waist  ..." 

But  Lizarann  interrupts.  "I  didn't  sye  wyste,"  she  says. 
"Round  her  arms  with  string  above  the  elber.  She  hin't  got  a 
wyste.  She's  all  one  piece.  Yass ! "  Then  Mrs.  Fox  returns,  and 
throws  a  light  on  old  Mrs.  Willoughby.  She  is  her  cousin 
Catharine,  and  is  dropsical.  What  set  the  child  off  on  her,  she 
asks? 

Jim  explains.  "  The  lassie  wasn't  so  far  out,  mother,"  he  says. 
"  You  may  have  too  much  of  a  good  thing.  Only  ..."  But  he 
doesn't  finish. 

And  Mrs.  Fox,  when  she  afterwards  told  Athelstan  Taylor  things 
about  Jim,  recalled  how,  at  this  interview,  she  could  see  him  al- 
ways feeling,  feeling  gently,  about  the  little  feet  and  hands  that 
came  out  of  the  blanket  she  had  wrapped  about  the  child.  "  I  did 
all  I  could  to  give  him  heart,"  she  said  then.  "  But  I  couldn't  say 
too  much  about  looks,  because  he  could  see  with  his  finger-tips,  as 
you  might  say." 

In  fact,  old  Mrs.  Fox  could  offer  very  little  in  the  way  of  re- 
assurance, and  had  to  fall  back  upon  a  resource  that  had  already 
been  freely  drawn  upon — the  growth  of  little  girls  and  the  at- 
tenuation that  was  alleged  to  accompany  it,  though  really  an  ap- 
peal was  being  made  to  conditions  of  development  that  belong  to 
growing  children  over  eight  years  old.  Probably  Jim  saw  through 
all  this.  But  he  did  not  want  to  discourage  those  who  wished  to 
give  him  hope.  What  though  it  were  to  be  hope  against  hope — by 
which  one  means  hope  against  fear,  with  despair  in  the  bush — was 
not  their  goodwill  as  good,  whatever  foes  were  in  league  against 
him? 

But,  except  it  were  just  this  once,  Jim  never  allowed  his  fears  to 
leak  out.  He  could  lock  them  up  in  his  own  bosom,  and  endure 
life  to  the  end.  If  he  lost  his  little  lass,  why ! — that  was  the  end 


536  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

of  things.  He  looked  forward  to  it,  if  it  was  to  be,  as  a  be- 
liever in  the  possibility  of  his  own  extinction  may  look  forward 
to  the  guillotine.  Only,  the  knife-edge  of  this  guillotine  of  Jim's 
was  to  touch  his  neck  and  spring  back,  then  do  the  same  again, 
then  just  draw  blood  and  spare  him — a  guillotine-cat  at  play  with 
a  human  heart.  But  as  for  showing  his  fears  to  the  little  lass — no 
more  of  that ! 

This  was  in  January.  The  child  was  then  still  enjoying  life, 
with  the  drawback  of  that  nasty  cough.  It  was  only  a  few  weeks 
since  she  had  been  up  in  the  early  morning  to  see  her  Daddy  to  his 
field  of  operations.  Why  was  that  stopped,  and  why  was  Lizarann 
so  ready  to  surrender,  and  even  to  remain  in  bed  till  the  day  got 
warm  and  she  could  go  out?  It  was  all  put  down  to  the  winter 
days.  But  who  ever  gave  a  thought  to  the  winter  days  in  Tallack 
Street  ?  She  firmly  believed  in  her  heart  that,  if  only  the  medicine- 
bottles  were  flung  on  a  dust-heap,  and  she  and  Daddy  were  to  go 
back  to  their  old  lives,  she  would  still  be  able  to  wait  his  coming  in 
the  cold,  and  perhaps  tell  all  about  the  Flying  Dutchman  again  to 
old  Mother  Groves,  and  hear  more  of  the  strange  experiences  of  the 
Turk.  She  identified  her  old  health  with  her  surroundings  at  that 
time,  and  credited  them  with  claims  for  gratitude  really  due  to  it. 

However,  the  exhilarating  bygone  time  had  disappeared.  Per- 
haps it  was  the  healthy,  bracing  influence  of  Aunt  Stingy  that  she 
missed,  and  the  occasional  stimulus,  when  Jim  was  afar,  of  a  / 
strap  or  a  slipper?  Perhaps  it  was  Uncle  Bob?  Perhaps  it  w« 
The  Boys?  If  she  and  Bridgetticks  were  shouting  defiances  to 
them — now  this  moment,  through  the  snow — would  it  make  her 
cough  ?  She  scouted  the  idea.  It  never  used  to  it.  Indeed,  she 
did  not  feel  sure  that  Bridgetticks  might  not  prove,  if  fairly  tried, 
worth  quarts  of  Chloric  Ether.  A  dream  hung  about  her  waking 
consciousness  of  Bridgetticks  and  the  Turk,  mysteriously  visitors 
to  relatives  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Royd,  and  of  a  wild  escapade 
to  the  highest  ridge  of  a  hill  in  the  neighbourhood,  in  the  snow. 
At  the  end  of  that  dream  an  imaginary  self  passed  through  the 
mind  of  the  little  pale  dreamer,  a  robust  young  self  and  a  rosy, 
that  broke  in  upon  an  image  of  Daddy  at  his  hour  for  leaving  the 
well-head,  with,  "  Me  and  this  boy  and  Bridgetticks,  we  been  right 
up  atop  of  Crumwen,  and  I  haven't  coftited  not  wuntst,  the  whole 
time !  '*  A  little  of  that  sort  of  thing  would  set  her  up.  But  she 
wasn't  going  to  say  so.  She  loved  the  big  Rector  and  Phoebe  and 
Jones,  and  Mrs.  Forks,  and  even  poor  Dr.  Spiderophel,  with  his 
scientific  delusions,  far  too  much  to  hint  that  they  could  be  mis- 
taken. They  should  have  it  all  their  way,  they  should! 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  537 

Athelstan  Taylor  became  quite  hopeful  about  the  little  girl  dur- 
ing that  January  and  February.  He  paid  Lizarann  a  visit  at  in- 
tervals— very  short  ones  when  her  absences  from  school  were  fre- 
quent. According  to  the  reports  he  carried  to  Miss  Caldecott  and 
his  own  little  girls,  the  patient  took  a  decided  turn  for  the  better 
so  often  that  a  very  few  weeks  should  have  sufficed  to  qualify  her 
to  practise  as  an  Amazon.  Phoebe  and  Joan  were  quite  satisfied 
that  when  papa  and  aunty  took  them  up  to  town  in  autumn 
Lizarann  would  come  too,  and  then  they  would  all  go  to  see 
Madame  Tussaud's,  Westminster  Abbey,  and  Tallack  Street. 
Especially  the  last.  But  this  expedition  never  came  off. 

When  Teacher  from  London  came  again  about  Easter  time  she 
was  disappointed.  She  did  not  find  what  she  had  been  led  to 
suppose  she  would;  not  by  any  conscious  exaggeration  of  the  Rec- 
tor's, but  by  his  genuine  over-hopefulness,  backed  by  groundless 
mis-statements  of  fact  from  the  little  woman  herself  contained  in 
very  well-written  letters  enclosing  hieroglyphs  that  meant  kisses. 
Adeline  Fossett  took  the  first  opportunity  of  finding  out  whether 
the  patient  was  still  a  self-acting  Turkish  Bath  in  the  small 
hours,  or  dry.  Her  observations  were  not  satisfactory.  But 
there! — you  know  all  about  cases  of  this  sort;  at  least,  we  expect 
you  do,  though  we  hope  you  don't. 

"I  wish  we  could  get  her  to  the  seaside,"  said  she.  "Any  of 
those  places  would  do.  You  know,  Yorick,  you  are  just  as  anxious 
to  save  the  little  person  as  I  am.  Every  bit !  " 

"  My  dear  Addie! — of  course  I  am.  The  idea!  But  we  mustn't 
talk  of  saving  her,  yet.  I  should  say  losing  her,  perhaps;  but  you 
know  what  I  mean.  We  can  talk  to  Sidrophel — see  what  he  says." 

So  the  doctor  was  referred  to,  and  his  opinion  amounted  to  this : 
that  if  the  child  went  away  by  herself  to  any  sort  of  hospital  or 
home,  she  would  either  have  to  be  indoors  with  the  other  patients, 
or  exposed  to  all  the  windy  gusts  of  spring  on  the  sea-beach,  or 
perhaps  in  a  shelter  with  a  fine  sea-view.  People  were  always 
hunting  climates  that  didn't  exist,  and  inflicting  horrible  hardships 
on  themselves  in  the  chase.  When  summer  by  the  sea  was  a  cer- 
tainty, send  her,  by  all  means.  After  midsummer,  he  should  say; 
no  sooner! 

This  was  in  early  April,  just  when  a  misleading  rush  of  crocuses 
into  a  treacherous  few  days  of  sunshine  had  set  folk  off  hoping  for 
a  real  spring  this  year;  like  when  we  were  young — like  Chaucer — 
like  Spenser.  Some  mistaken  nightingales  arrived,  and  must  have 
felt  foolish.  Infatuated  orchards  promised  themselves  a  crop  of 
pears;  it  even  went  as  far  as  that! 


538  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  We  may  be  thankful  for  one  thing,  at  any  rate,"  said  the  Rev. 
Athelstan  to  Miss  Fossett  two  or  three  weeks  after.  "  We  did 
not  pack  off  that  little  wench  to  the  seaside.  In  weather  like 
this  she's  best  where  she  is,  on  the  whole.  Sidrophel's  right.  He 
often  is." 

"He  was  right  this  time.  Just  look  at  it!"  Sleet  was  the 
thing  referred  to. 

•"Worry  bad  state  the  roads  are  in,  sir,"  saya  a  third  party  in 
this  conversation.  "  Bad  alike  for  'orse  and  man.  Thankee, 
sir ! "  He  was  a  cabman,  and  he  had  just  driven  this  lady  and 
gentleman  over  five  miles,  so  he  knew.  He  departs  with  the  post- 
script sixpence  his  last  words  procured,  as  an  extra  concession  after 
an  over-liberal  fare,  and  his  late  tenants  pass  in  at  the  door  of  the 
little  house  that  is  part  of  the  school-building  where  Lizarann  de- 
veloped that  first  inflammatory  cold  months  ago.  The  story  is  back 
for  the  moment  on  the  Cazenove  Estate,  and  the  Rector  is  going 
presently  to  walk  over  to  the  new  incumbent  at  St.  Vulgate's,  who 
will  house  him  to-night,  and  tell  of  his  few  sheep  and  many  goats. 
He  can  stay  for  a  cup  of  tea  now,  and  get  there  by  seven. 

"Yes,  the  doctor  was  right.  She's  just  as  well  off  under  Mrs. 
Fox's  thatch.  Better!  When  the  warm  weather  comes  we'll  send 
her  for  six  weeks  to  Chalk  Cliff,  and  give  her  a  good  set-up ! " 
But  his  hearer  only  sees  her  way  to  silence  on  this  point. 

The  story  has  told,  but  very  slightly,  the  strange  rapport  between 
these  two,  that  had  lasted  through  so  many  years.  For  over 
twenty  they  had  elected  to  pose  as  brother  and  sister.  During 
all  that  time  the  mind  of  each  had  referred  to  the  other  as  in 
some  sense  the  principal  person;  that  is  the  only  way  to  express 
their  thought.  When  Athelstan  first  adored  the  fascinating  Sophia 
Caldecott,  he  really  could  hardly  have  said  which  he  wanted  most, 
that  young  person  herself,  or  Gus's  sister's  sympathy  about  her. 
But  so  blind  was  he  at  the  time,  so  blind  had  he  remained  through 
all  the  years  of  his  married  life,  that  he  never  conceived  that, 
midmost  among  all  her  memories  of  the  past,  a  lurid  star  outshin- 
ing all  the  others,  was  the  record  of  that  hour  when  the  young 
man  she  thought  and  spoke  of  as  a  boy,  remembered  so  well,  came 
to  her  father's  house  intoxicated  with  a  new-found  joy,  to  tell  her 
chiefly  and  above  all  others  that  he  was  affianced  to— well ! — to  the 
wrong  sister;  not  the  friend  she  had  set  her  heart  on! 

As  they  sat  there  by  the  fire  in  the  half-dark,  resting  after  their 
journey,  his  mind,  like  hers,  went  off  on  old  times.  Presently  he 
shook  off  his  own  burden  of  memories  with,  "  Well ! — I  suppose  I 
ought  to  be  on  the  move." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  539 

"  Don't  hurry  away.  It's  not  much  past  five  yet,  and  they  can 
make  dinner  half-past  seven.  You've  plenty  of  time." 

The  flicker  of  the  fire  has  the  best  of  what  is  left  of  the  light  of 
a  dull  day;  it  shows  two  faces  serious  enough,  certainly,  but  not 
sad.  They  are  dwelling  on  the  same  past,  each  from  its  own  point 
of  view;  but  their  owners  are  really  happy  to  eke  out  a  little  more 
time  in  the  half-light,  each  knowing  the  heart  of  the  other.  They 
are  glad  dinner  at  St.  Vulgate's  can  be  half -past  seven;  it  is  half- 
an-hour  longer  to  be  together,  and  really  those  people  in  the  train 
had  made  it  impossible  to  talk. 

"  I  shan't  see  you  again  for  ever  so  long,  Yorick,  unless  you  and 
Bessy  change  your  minds  and  come  up  earlier." 

"  You  must  manage  a  visit  to  Royd  in  July." 

"HI  can!— it  depends.    But  ..." 

The  Rector  glanced  shrewdly  up.  "But  anything  particular?" 
said  he. 

"  Well,  Yorick,  yes !  Something  particular.  Only  I  don't 
know  how  to  say  it."  As  she  sits  there,  a  little  flushed — or  is  it 
only  the  firelight? — one  hand  a  face-rest,  the  other  coaxing  the 
burning  coals  into  groups  with  a  persuasive  poker,  the  question 
that  suggests  itself  is  the  old  one — how  comes  she  to  be  an  old 
maid?  A  six-and- thirty  maid,  at  any  rate! 

"  I  know  what  it's  about,  Addie.     It's  the  Bill,  and  the  Bishop." 

"  Yes,  dear  old  boy."  This  was  a  great  relief.  "  Now,  do  tell 
toe,  what  shall  you  do  ?  " 

"  You  mean  if  the  Bill  passes  ? " 

"Yes." 

"  I  shall  do  nothing.     Why  should  I  ? " 

"  Not  even  if  Dr.  Barham  .    .    .  ?  " 

"  Dr.  Barham  can  do  nothing.  He  can  only  remonstrate.  What 
was  it  he  said  to  Lady  Arkroyd  ? " 

"That  if  the  Bill  passed  it  would  be  his  duty  to  point  out  to 
you  that  your  relations  .  .  .  well! — your  relation  with  Bessy  had 
altogether  changed  since  the  Act;  and  that  for  a  clerk  in  holy 
orders  to  keep  house  with  any  single  lady  not  his  sister  by  par- 
entage would  be  ...  well! — would  not  do  at  all." 

"  And  what  did  Lady  Arkroyd  say  to  the  Bishop  ?  " 

"  Not  herself ;  it  was  the  Duchess.  Only  she  told  me.  What  the 
Duchess  said  was,  '  I  hope  if  you  do,  the  Reverend  Athelstan  will 
bring  a  suit  against  you  for  libel,  and  make  you  smart  for  it.' 
Dr.  Barham  won't  speak  to  .her  Grace  now." 

"Dr.  Barham  would  be  quite  within  his  rights.  No  action 
for  libel  could  possibly  lie.  Any  remonstrance  on  a  matter  of 


540  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

morality  within  his  diocese  must  be  a  Bishop's  privilege.     Besides, 
a  written  letter  would  hardly  constitute  publication.   ..." 

"  Dear  old  Yorick !     I  wonder  why  men  are  so  fond  of  talking 
law  to  women,   as  if  they  knew  by  nature   and  women  didn't. 
Never  mind  the  law !     It  isn't  that.   .   .   .     Don't  you  see  how  dis 
agreeable  it  would  be  for  Bessy?" 

"  No — I  don't  know  that  I  do.  I  don't  see  why  Bess  need 
bother  herself  about  it.  ..." 

"Hm  .    .    .!" 

"  Oh — well — yes !  Yes,  I  do — of  course  I  do !  It  would  be  de- 
testable for  Bess." 

"You  see  I'm  right?" 

"  Oh  yes,  absolutely.  It  was  only  my  perversity."  A  self- 
excusing,  deprecatory  shoulder-shrug.  Peccavit  confitetur  is  its 
import.  Then  he  breaks  into  a  good-humoured  laugh.  u  After  all, 
you  know,  there's  always  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty." 

Something  brings  a  sudden  exclamation  from  Adeline  Fossett. 
"  Yes,  what  ? — but  go  on !  "  She  has  risen  from  her  seat,  and 
stands  with  her  hands  pressed  close  together,  and  eyes  of  ex- 
pectation fixed  on  his.  "  Oh,  Yorick ! — is  it — is  it  ...  Oh,  I 
do  hope  .  .  .  is  it  the  one  I've  thought  of  ?  "  She  hesitates.  He 
hesitates. 

"  That  depends  on  what  you  have  thought,"  he  says  at  last.  But 
with  a  suspicion  that  they  may  have  thought  alike,  too. 

"Oh,  if  I  dared  guess!  ...  I  don't  know;  dare  I?  .  .  . 
— yes,  I  will — I  don't  care!  ..." 

"  Go  on !  " 

"  If  the  Bill  passes,  you  know  .  .  .  then  .  .  .  then  .  .  . 
you  and  Bessy  to  get  married !  Was  that  your  idea,  Yorick  ?  Oh, 
do  tell  me!" 

"  Why,  of  course  it  was." 

Miss  Fossett  throws  herself  back  in  her  chair  again,  with  a 
deep  sigh  as  of  relief.  "  Oh  dear,  how  nice  that  would  be ! "  she 
says.  But  she  is  taking  it  all  to  heart,  and  her  eyes  are  full  of 
tears.  The  Rector  is  very  cool  over  it. 

"  It  would  be  a  way  out  of  the  difficulty,"  he  says.  "  Not  a  bad 
one,  perhaps.  Better,  at  any  rate,  than  Bess  having  to  turn 
out  and  leave  the  children.  They  are  quite  like  her  own,  you 
see.  And  it  wouldn't  make  any  difference."  This  is  not  quite  un- 
derstood, apparently,  and  he  adds :  "  Everything  would  go  on  ex- 
actly as  usual." 

Miss  Fossett  had  a  sort  of  feeling  that  it  might  be  possible  to 
parade  an  unlover-like  attitude  too  far.  Athelstan  surely  might 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  541 

warm  up  a  little.  He  had  spoken  as  he  might  have  done  if  mar- 
riage were  a  new  hat.  It  would,  or  wouldn't,  fit.  "  You  would 
.  .  .  like  it,  though — wouldn't  you?"  she  asked,  in  a  rather 
frightened  sort  of  way. 

"  It  would  suit  me  very  well.  I  shouldn't  like  the  only  other 
expedient — marrying  somebody  else  to  make  up  a  possible  house- 
keeping. We  both  should  know  exactly  why  we  had  done  it,  and  we 
should  gain  the  end  proposed.  It  would  rather  be  for  Bess  to  de- 
cide if  she  would  like  such  a  very  prosaic  arrangement." 

"You  mean  chilly?" 

"  No,  I  don't.  We're  not  chilly  now,  Bess  and  I.  And  we  never 
quarrel.  The  temperature  wouldn't  go  down  because  we  had  de- 
ferred to  the  opinion  of  our  diocesan."  He  drew  out  his  watch, 
"  I  must  go.  ...  Don't  think  I'm  not  in  earnest,  Addie.  If 
the  Bill  passes,  I  might  have  to  ask  Bess  to  settle  the  point.  I 
should  do  it  for  the  sake  of  the  children.  The  worst  of  it  would 
be  that  if  she  negatived  the  idea,  we  might  be  uncomfortable 
afterwards.  As  for  her  leaving  the  children,  of  course  that's  out 
of  the  question.  And  I  couldn't  have  her  carry  them  off,  like 
poor  Challis's  wife.  ...  I  must  go."  He  got  up  to  depart. 

"  I'm  disappointed,  Yorick,"  said  Adeline. 

"What  at,  Addie?" 

"  Why,  of  course  she  wouldn't  have  you  on  those  terms." 

"  Just  consider !     If  you  were  in  her  place  ?  " 

"  Well — 7  wouldn't!  Not  on  those  terms."  She  seemed  to  mean 
every  syllable. 

The  Rector  stood  in  the  passage,  buttoning  his  overcoat.  "  Poor 
Challis ! "  said  he,  going  back  on  the  conversation.  "  They've 
made  a  knight  of  him!  I  shall  go  and  look  for  him  before  I  go 
back.  I  fancy  he's  back  in  town." 

"You  know  I  don't  agree,  Yorick?' 

"What  about?" 

"About  'poor  Challis.'"  These  words  were  said  in  inverted 
commas.  "  I  told  you,  don't  you  remember,  that  I  had  heard  all 
about  it  from  the  other  side — from  Charlotte  Eldridge." 

"  Yes,  but  you  were  biassed  against  him,  because  of  his  deceased 
wife's  sister  marriage.  You  know  you  were !  " 

"Well! — wasn't  I  right?"  But  there  is  an  amused  twinkle  in 
the  Rector's  eye,  which  is  understood.  "  Oh  no,  Yorick,  no ! — it's 
quite  a  different  thing.  ..." 

"Before  and  after  an  Act  of  Parliament,  is  that  it?" 

But  Adeline  has  run  her  ship  on  the  sands,  and  must  back  off. 
"It's  impossible  to  compare  the  two  cases,"  she  says.  "Do  you 


542  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

know,  if  you  are  to  be  at  St.  Vulgate's  by  seven-thirty,  you'll  want 
a  cab.  You  can't  carry  what  you're  pleased  to  call  your  little 
valise  and  get  there  by  then.  Do  take  a  cab,  Yorick !  " 

"  Fifty-five  minutes  does  it,"  says  Yorick.  "  And  I've  got  fifty- 
seven.  I've  a  great  mind  to  spend  the  odd  two  reading  you  a  lit- 
tle homily  about  consistency.  ..." 

"  Go  away.  Good-bye."  A  cordial  shake  of  the  hand  is  all  that 
forms  permit,  and  it  seems  such  a  shame! 

One  reason  why  it  was  impossible  to  compare  the  two  cases 
was  a  perfectly  clear  one,  to  the  thinking  of  Miss  Fossett's  inner- 
most heart.  But  she  kept  it  tight  locked  up  there. 

In  the  old  days,  when  all  her  forecasts  of  life  took  her  own  prac- 
tical exclusion  from  it  for  granted,  and  wrote  celibacy  large  on 
every  page  of  her  record-volume,  her  great  dream  had  been  to  unite 
her  beloved  friend  Bessy  Caldecott  to  that  dearest  of  all  possible 
young  fellows,  her  brother  Gus's  friend  Athelstan.  Adeline  was  a 
little  prone  to  playing  at  Providence,  and — don't  you  see? — Bessy 
was  so  good  and  sound,  and  so  much  better  altogether  than  that 
showy  little  sister  of  hers.  So,  what  wonder,  when  Athelstan 
led  the  family  minx,  Sophy,  to  the  altar,  that  Adeline  rather  than 
otherwise  wished  that  the  earth  would  open  and  swallow  the  altar? 
She  would  have  resented  the  idea  that  any  personal  feeling  entered 
into  the  matter. 

Even  so  in  these  new  days,  with  all  this  change,  she  could  and 
did  believe  that  she  could  see  her  old  girl  friend  the  wife  of  her 
old  boy  friend,  without  any  feeling  but  sheer  rejoicing  that  Yorick 
had  married  the  right  sister  after  all.  And  this  feeling  entered 
strangely  into  her  real  views  on  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  ques- 
tion. Catechized  closely,  she  might  have  confessed  to  a  belief 
in  real  wives,  with  a  sub-creed  that  marriage  with  a  sister  of  one 
was  somehow  a  worse  desecration  of  a  sacrament  than  marriage 
with  a  second  cousin,  for  instance,  or  a  mere  female  undefined. 
There  was  no  evidence  to  show  that  Challis  hadn't  married  the 
right  sister  first.  If  he  hadn't,  of  course  the  "  living  in  Sin  "  busi- 
ness had  come  off  in  the  first  act  of  his  drama,  and  nothing  was 
needed  but  an  Act  of  Parliament  to  qualify  the  parties  to  live  in 
purity,  ungrundied. 

At  any  rate,  those  were  the  lines  on  which  Miss  Fossett  would  have 
justified  her  friend's  defiance  of  his  Bishop.  And  when  Yorick 
had  referred  to  that  other  way  of  solving  his  problem — marriage 
with  the  female  undefined — she  had  shut  any  hint  of  that  female 
being  defined  as  herself  into  the  very  core  of  her  heart  with  a  snap. 


CHAPTER  XLIII 

CHALLIS'S  VISIT  TO  THE  RECTORY.  A  VISIT  TO  JIM  AT  THE  WELL.  HOW 
LIZARANN  WAS  AT  THE  SEASIDE.  ST.  AUGUSTUS  SUMMER.  HOW 
THEY  MET  SALADIN.  HOW  CHALLIS  TOLD  ALL 

"  HAVE  him  down  here  if  you  like,  Athel,"  said  Miss  Caldecott 
to  her  brother-in-law  on  the  first  of  August,  a  little  over  three 
months  later.  "  I  shall  be  in  London  with  Phoebe  and  Joan.  So 
it  can't  matter  to  me.  Only  I  think  he  ought  to  be  on  honour." 

"  How  do  you  mean,  aunty  ? " 

"  You  know  what  I  mean.     On  honour  not  to." 

"  Not  to  what  ? "  But  Aunt  Bessy  wasn't  going  to  answer  ques- 
tions on  the  subject,  whatever  it  was.  So  she  closed  her  eyes  in 
harmony  with  an  expressive  lip-pinch,  and  said  finis  dumbly  to 
this  chapter  of  the  conversation.  However,  she  began  another. 

"  Apart  from  that,  I  don't  like  his  tone,"  said  she. 

"I  know  you  don't."  This  meant  that  the  Rector  didn't  want 
the  second  chapter.  He  harked  back  to  the  first.  "Perhaps  Sir 
Challis  will  promise  not  to,"  said  he. 

"  I  don't  see  how  you  can  ask  him."  This  was  said  very  dryly, 
and  the  speaker  indicated  that  it  was  an  ultimatum  by  going  on 
with  a  letter  she  was  writing. 

For  Miss  Caldecott  was  a  sort  of  inverse  Charlotte  Eldridge. 
To  the  latter  lady,  as  we  know,  the  mention  of  a  lady  and  gentle- 
man, as  such,  and  such  only,  was  as  the  sound  of  battle  to  the  war- 
horse.  The  former  was  very  apt  to  petrify  if  the  conversation  went 
outside  the  limits  of  the  neuter  gender  without  stipulating  for  a 
strict  neutrality  on  the  part  of  the  other  two.  A  hint  of  what 
Mrs.  Protheroe  called  "  going  on  "  on  the  part  of  properly — or  im- 
properly— qualified  masculines  and  feminines  was  enough  to  make 
Aunt  Bessy  discover  that  we  must  be  getting  back,  and  begin 
looking  for  those  children's  gloves. 

Why  Adeline  Fossett  had  yearned  to  link  the  lives  of  this  lady 
and  her  friend  Yorick  was  very  difficult  to  guess.  That,  however, 
does  not  belong  to  the  story  at  present.  Its  business  is  with  the 
lady  and  gentleman  responsible  for  the  little  bit  of  frigidity  it  has 
just  recorded. 

When  Athelstan  Taylor  called  at  the  Hermitage  in  April,  just 

548 


544  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

after  Challis's  arrival  in  England,  he  threw  out,  in  thoughtless 
hospitality,  a  suggestion  that  the  latter  should  pay  him  a  visit  in 
the  Autumn.  The  invitation  was  jumped  at,  and  the  Rector 
perceived  afterwards  that  there  might  have  been  a  reason  for  this, 
to  the  possibility  of  which  he  was  at  the  moment  not  sufficiently 
awake.  But  he  was  too  honourable  to  go  back  on  his  word. 

If  he  had  felt  sure  enough  of  his  ground  he  might  have  spoken 
frankly  to  Challis,  and  put  him  off  till  some  time  when  Judith's 
absence  from  the  Hall  was  a  certainty.  But  he  had  not  enough 
to  go  upon  for  that.  He  found  out  the  poverty  of  his  case  by  at- 
tempting a  letter  to  Challis.  "  My  dear  Challis — You  know  me, 
and  I  know  you  will  excuse  my  speaking  plainly.  ..."  And 
then  had  to  think  what  the  plain  speech  was  to  be.  He  considered 
"  I  know  that  you  and  Miss  Arkroyd  are  quite  within  your  rights 
when,  etc.,"  and  "  I  think  your  wife's  strange  conduct  has  left  you 
free  to  take  advantage  of  what  I  should  otherwise  regard  as  a  legal 
shuffle,  etc." ;  and  "  I  know  you  would  not  avail  yourself  of  my 
hospitality  to,  etc.";  and  even  "I  can't  have  you  making  love  to 
Judith  Arkroyd  while  you  are  staying  at  the  Rectory,  etc.";  but 
concluded  by  rejecting  them  all — he  liked  the  last  best — and  tear- 
ing his  letter  to  fragments. 

He  ended  by  saying  to  himself :  "  These  are  not  yourig  people, 
to  be  chaperon'd  and  guardianed.  If  they  are  in  earnest,  they 
will  not  be  kept  apart  by  not  having  Challis  at  my  house.  And  the 
more  I  see  of  Challis  the  better  my  chance  of  influencing  him 
towards  the  wiser  course."  A  little  sub-commune  with  his  soul  as 
to  whether  he  was  quite  sure  he  was  not  being  influenced  by  his 
relations  with  the  county-families  and  the  Bishop  confirmed  him, 
and  Challis  came  down  to  Royd  Rectory  early  in  August.  Thus  it 
had  come  about  that  the  Rector  and  his  guest,  one  day  in  the  middle 
of  that  month,  were  walking  about  in  an  early-morning  garden — 
breakfast  is  very  early  at  the  Rectory  when  its  master  is  by  himself 
there — using  up  their  subjects  of  conversation;  or,  rather,  perhaps 
we  should  say,  chat. 

You  know  what  a  fool  one  always  is  about  that,  when  one  goes 
to  stay  with  a  friend;  how  one  gets  gravelled  for  lack  of  matter, 
and  the  old  subjects  have  to  do  a  second  time,  and  more.  Challis 
had  come  down  from  London  by  a  late  train  the  night  before — 
too  late  to  indulge  in  arrears  of  common  topics  then  and  there. 
That  slaughter  of  the  innocents  had  been  postponed  till  next 
day. 

"  How's  our  poor  friend  blind  Samson  and  his  small  daughter  ? " 
The  recollection  of  Lizarann — more  than  a  twelvemonth  past,  mind 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  545 

you! — twinkles  in  the  speaker's  face  as  he  blows  a  cloud  from  his 
invariable  cigar. 

"  Lizarann's  getting  on  capitally,  according  to  the  latest  ac- 
counts. Samson's  become  a  public  character,  and  is  making  him- 
self useful  as  a  sort  of  human  pump.  Do  you  want  a  large  bucket 
of  water  ? " 

"  Not  at  this  moment.     But  I  may  some  time.    Why  ? " 

"  When  you  do,  Samson  will  wind  you  one  up  from  under 
the  chalk,  as  fine  a  bucket  of  water  as  you'll  find  in  the  country. 
It  isn't  good  for  gout,  certainly.  But  otherwise  it's  perfect.  Not 
the  ghost  of  a  microbe !  " 

"  Perhaps  the  microbes  were  gouty,  and  died  of  it.  An  image 
of  a  well  presents  itself  to  me,  with  Samson  everlastingly  raising 
water,  and  villagers  bearing  it  away  in  pails." 

"  You've  got  it  exactly.     We'll  pay  Samson  a  visit." 

"  Of  course  we  will.  I  like  the  idea  of  Samson  at  the  well- 
head. .  .  .  But,  I  say,  Reverend  Sir!  ..." 

"  What's  the  question  ?  " 

"  How  about  the  little  wench  ?     Samson's  little  wench." 

"  I  told  you.     She's  getting  on  capitally  ..." 

"  That's  just  what  I  mean.  What  business  has  a  little  wench 
to  be  getting  on  capitally  ?  Has  she  been  ill  ?  " 

"  I  should  hardly  put  it  that  way.  No — I  think  I  may  say  she 
hasn't  exactly.  But  this  chest-delicacy  made  the  womankind  and 
the  doctor  a  little  uneasy.  On  the  whole  we  thought  it  best  to 
send  her  down  to  Chalk  Cliff  to  get  a  good  dose  of  sea  air.  It  ap- 
pears to  be  setting  her  up." 

Challis  glanced  shrewdly  at  the  Rector's  face  of  discomfort. 
"  Sea  air's  the  thing,"  he  said.  "  Does  wonders ! "  And  both 
felt  very  contented  with  the  effect  of  imaginary  sea  air  on 
imaginary  human  lungs. 

That  remark  we  made,  a  page  ago,  about  the  way  one  uses  up 
one's  material  for  talk  so  heedlessly,  was  made  with  a  reserva- 
tion. It  should  only  be  applied  to  causeries,  not  to  serious  debate 
of  deep  interest.  There  are  two  distinct  strata  of  conversation 
with  all  people;  the  things  that  interest  us  generally  are  the  top 
stratum;  those  that  touch  us  are  the  second.  Go  a  little  deeper, 
and  you  will  reach  those  that  put  us  on  the  rack.  Only,  when  it 
comes  to  that,  is  it  conversation  any  longer  ?  What  is  it  ? 

These  two  men  had  plenty  to  talk  about  in  the  top  stratum — 
enough  to  fill  the  day  out  had  they  chosen.  But  the  Rector  had 
no  intention  of  leaving  the  second  untouched,  and  no  fear  of  dig- 
ging down  to  the  third,  if  need  were.  There  was,  however,  no  need 


546  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

for  either  yet  awhile.  Both  might  remain  in  abeyance,  under  a 
silent  pact,  as  long,  at  least,  as  the  sun  shone.  Serious  talk-time 
comes  with  lamps  and  candles.  Once  in  the  day  Challis  was  con- 
scious of  the  thinness  of  the  crust  of  the  second  stratum.  On 
their  way  to  visit  Jim's  well-head  he  asked  his  companion  where- 
abouts it  was.  "  Half-way  between  the  village  and  the  Hall,"  was 
the  reply — "perhaps  rather  nearer  the  Hall  than  the  village.  Oh 
yes — certainly  nearer !  "  Challis  asked — to  make  talk,  for  he  knew 
the  answer  to  his  question — whether  the  family  were  there  now. 
"  Miss  Arkroyd  isn't,"  said  the  Rector. 

"I  have  never  seen  blind  Samson,  you  know,"  said  Challis. 
"  Only  the  little  cuss."  The  recollection  of  Lizarann  brought  a 
twinkle  to  his  face.  To  his  companion's,  none.  Who,  however, 
says  gravely :  "  She  was  a  dear,  amusing  little  thing." 

Blind  Samson  is  on  duty.  The  blaze  of  a  sun,  low  enough  to 
make  long  shadows,  shows  the  wreck  of  a  man,  his  face  bronzed 
now  by  its  glare  through  a  hot  summer  and  the  congenial  effort 
of  the  well-handle.  A  little  way  off  you  would  not  know  the  eyes 
saw  nothing,  but  for  their  never  flinching  from  the  sunlight  that 
strikes  full  upon  them.  Going  nearer,  you  would  know  them  for 
dead.  So  too,  if  his  legs  were  hidden  as  he  leans  on  the  bearing- 
post,  puffing  placidly  at  his  pipe,  you  would  judge  him  a  fine 
sample  and  a  strong,  well  cast  indeed  for  the  part  of  Samson. 

"  Jim's  a  popular  chap  in  these  parts,"  says  the  Rector  as  they 
draw  near.  "  Our  barber  in  the  village  tells  me  he  always  looks 
forward  to  Mr.  Coupland's  weekly  visit.  Every  Saturday  Jim  goes 
to  him — in  spite  of  a  fiction  he  indulges  in  that  he  can  shave  him- 
self— to  be  ready  for  church  on  Sunday." 

"  I  thought  you  said  the  other  day — I  mean  last  April — that  he 
was  a  worse  heathen  than  myself?" 

"  So  he  is.  But  he  has  made  a  compromise  with  his  Maker — 
whom  he  disapproves  of  strongly  otherwise — on  the  score  of  music. 
He  is  a  tremendous  addition  to  the  village  choir.  I  fancy  he  was 
always  musical,  but  his  blindness  has  developed  the  faculty." 

"  Well — it  must  be  water  in  the  desert  for  poor  Jim.  Here  we 
are,  I  suppose  ? " 

A  dog  came  down  the  path  of  worn  bricks,  set  on  edge,  that 
leads  to  the  well.  He  is  Jim's  dog,  and  very  important,  for  he 
conducts  Jim  to  the  well  and  back  daily,  in  Lizarann's  absence. 
But  the  actual  importance  of  this  dog,  though  great,  is  as  nothing 
compared  to  his  conviction  of  it.  This,  if  it  does  not  amount  to  a 
belief  that  he  turns  the  well-handle,  lays  claim  to  reserved  powers 
of  veto  over,  or  permission  conceded  to,  Jim's  interference  with 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  547 

the  water-supply.  He  smells  every  applicant  for  water  carefully, 
to  see  that  all  is  right,  and  he  glances  into  every  bucket  be- 
fore it  leaves  the  well-head,  and  occasionally  tastes  the  contents, 
as  though  in  search  of  microbes.  In  his  opinion  it  is  entirely 
owing  to  him  that  the  well  has  not  been  poisoned  by  bicyclists,  who 
are  afraid  to  stop  and  effect  their  wicked  purposes  because  of  the 
promptitude  with  which  he  runs  out  and  barks  at  them.  He  ap- 
pears to  sanction  Challis  and  the  Rector,  and  to  explain  them, 
obligingly,  to  his  principal — or  perhaps  we  should  say  employee. 

"  I  caught  the  sound  of  ye,  coming  down  the  road,  master,"  says 
Jim.  "You're  a  glad  hearing  to  a  man,  a  marning  like  this.  A 
sight  for  sore  eyes,  as  the  saying  is."  Which  was  said  with  such  a 
serene,  unconscious  confidence  that  it  almost  imposed  on  his  hear- 
ers. Jim  didn't  let  the  Rector's  hand  go  at  once.  "Nothing 
further,  I  lay  ? "  said  he  anxiously. 

"  Not  since  yesterday,  Jim.  I  thought  the  letter  a  good  one. 
I've  brought  it  back  in  my  pocket.  .  .  .  We're  talking  about  his 
little  girl,  Challis,  down  at  Chalk  Cliff.  .  .  .  This  is  Sir  Alfred 
Challis,  Jim,  a  friend  of  Lizarann's." 

Jim  seemed  puzzled  for  a  few  seconds,  perhaps  not  recalling  the 
name  in  its  present  form ;  then  experienced  illumination.  "  Ay, 
sure,  sir!  ...  I  lost  my  bearings  for  the  moment.  .  .  .  The 
little  lassie,  she's  talked  of  you  many's  the  time.  But  that'll  be  a 
while  back?" 

"  Over  a  twelvemonth,  Jim,"  says  Challis,  and  his  inner  soul 
adds,  "  And  what  a  twelvemonth ! "  But  he  has  to  talk  about  the 
child.  "I'm  sorry  she's  not  here,  Jim,"  he  says,  and  means  it. 
"  We  made  great  friends,  your  little  lassie  and  I  did.  She  said 
she  liked  me  better  than  she  did  her  aunt." 

Jim  laughed  delightedly.  "  There  never  was  love  lost  between 
the  lass  and  her  Aunt  Priscilla.  They  weren't  cut  out  for  berth- 
mates."  Nevertheless,  he  didn't  want  to  leave  his  sister  quite  out 
in  the  cold.  "Priscilla's  a  good-hearted  woman,  ye  know,  too, 
when  all's  told.  But  she's  had  some  bad  times  ...  a  bad  hus- 
band. ..."  He  hesitated  on  his  condemnation,  and  went  for 
palliation  instead.  "Well! — perhaps  that's  too  hard  a  word.  Poor 
Bob  Steptoe! — he'd  have  made  a  better  end  but  for  his  drawback. 
He  took  a  good  rating  as  a  cobbler."  Jim  paused,  perplexed  by 
eorne  reminiscence.  "  I  don't  hear  much  nowadays  of  my  sister 
Priscilla ;  not  since  I  come  down  here.  I  make  out  she's  in  service 
with  a  lady  at  Wimbledon.?  The  fact  is,  Jim  and  Aunt  Stingy 
were  drifting  apart  by  tacit  consent. 

Challis  ought  to  have  been  able  to  contrive  a  reminder  that  Aunt 


548  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Stingy  was  his  cook.  He  began  by  saying :  "  Of  course — with  my 
wife.  She's  our  cook  at  the  Hermitage."  That  wouldn't  do, 
clearly.  Try  again .'  "  She's  our  cook  at  home."  He  wasn't  at 
all  sure  this  wasn't  worse.  He  decided  on,  "  She  cooks  for  me, 
you  know,  when  I'm  in  London,"  but  threw  up  entrenchments 
against  possible  surprises  by  changing  the  subject.  "  So  your  lit- 
tle maid's  gone  to  the  seaside  ?  " 

Jim  forgot  Aunt  Stingy  with  avidity.  "  Ah !  for  sure  she  has !  " 
said  he.  "  My  little  lass !  But  she's  coming  back  early  next 
month.  Ask  the  master !  " 

"  Early  next  month,  Jim.  That's  the  fixture."  Is  there  a  trace 
of  cheerful  reassurance  in  the  Rector's  voice?  Yes — just  enough 
to  produce  misgiving  in  Jim.  It  has  to  be  stifled  in  its  birth.  Jim 
treads  bravely  over  the  cinder-traps — the  fires  smouldering  under- 
ground. "  Ye  see,  gentlemen,"  he  says,  "  it's  this  way :  If  my 
lassie  comes  back  afore  September,  there'll  maybe  be  a  spell  of 
sunshiny  weather  fit  for  a  lassie  to  see  her  Daddy  a  mile  down  the 
road.  Belike,  too,  stop  a  little  to  bear  him  company,  in  the  best  o' 
the  day.  Many  a  September  month  have  I  known,  early  morning 
apart,  to  compare  with  the  rarest  days  of  the  summer." 

"  They  call  it  a  summer,  you  know,  Jim.  St.  Augustin's  sum- 
mer." So  says  Challis;  and  he  is  ready  to  supply  any  climatic 
record  to  please  Jim.  "  Sometimes  the  thermometer  has  been 
known  to  stand  at  ninety  in  the  shade." 

Jim  is  greatly  impressed,  and  very  happy  over  this.  He  sees 
before  him,  in  imagination,  a  fortnight  or  three  weeks  of  match- 
less weather,  with  Lizarann  beside  him.  His  soul  laughs;  indeed, 
his  lungs  join  chorus.  "  What  did  the  doctor  say  again,  master? " 
says  he. 

But  Athelstan's  face  is  one  of  concern.  The  doctor's  report 
had  been,  alas!  that  the  effect  of  the  sea  air  would  very  likely 
begin  to  tell  on  the  patient  when  she  got  back.  She  would,  no 
doubt,  be  better  when  she  got  back  to  her  father,  about  whom 
she  was  fidgety.  This  doctor  kindly  vouched  for  the  same  thing 
having  happened  several  times  in  like  cases. 

Challis  watched  his  friend  as  he  made  out  the  best  tale  he 
could.  Do  you  remember  Challis's  first  appearance  in  this 
story,  and  how  we  spoke  of  him  as  perceptive?  He  was  that,  and 
all  sorts  of  little  intimations  constantly  reached  him,  by  mysteri- 
ous telegraphies,  of  concurrent  events — things  many  would  miss 
altogether.  No  wonder  he  read  between  the  lines  of  Athelstan 
Taylor's  version  of  the  doctor's  report!  No  wonder! — for  any  but 
a  blind  man  would  have  detected  in  the  Rector's  serious  face  how 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  549 

little  he  believed  the  well-worn  forms  of  speech  folk  use  to  keep  the 
hearts  of  others  alive,  in  case — just  this  one  time — a  real  change 
for  the  better  should  come,  or  the  last  new  remedy  should  fulfil 
the  promises  of  the  ream  of  testimonials  it  was  wrapped  in  when 
we  bought  it.  But  the  Rector  threw  as  much  hope  as  he  dared 
into  his  telling,  and  did  well,  on  the  whole.  And  Jim  was  satis- 
fied for  now. 

A  little  later,  when  the  two  were  starting  to  go  back  to  the 
Rectory  by  a  roundabout  way,  having  left  Jim  attending  to  the  de- 
mands for  water  of  an  influx  of  applicants,  Athelstan  Taylor  said 
to  Challis:  "I  felt  quite  ashamed  of  myself  just  now.  .  .  . 
What  for  ?  Why,  for  talking  all  that  stuff  to  Jim  about  poor  little 
Lizarann!  But  what  can  one  do?  There's  nothing  to  be  gained 
by  plunging  the  poor  fellow  in  despair,  as  long  as  any  hope  re- 
mains of  her  outgrowing  it." 

"  You  mean  there  is  some  hope,  then  ?  " 

"  Some."    That  was  all  the  Rector  said. 

u  I  see.    But  is  it  to  be  a  long  job  ? " 

"  Probably  not — probably  not.  But  she  may  live  for  some  little 
time  yet — with  care.  I  don't  know  how  much  Jim  knows  or  sus- 
pects." 

"  Where  is  she  now  actually  ? " 

"  It's  called  the  Browne  Convalescent  Home,  at  Chalk  Cliff,  in 
Kent.  Sidrophel — I  should  say  Pordage — said  he  saw  no  object  in 
sending  her  to  a  mild  lowering  place  at  this  time  of  year.  What 
she  wanted  was  the  sea-air,  and  he  is  very  much  in  love  with  Chalk 
Cliff.  Well! — one  smells  the  seaweed  there." 

"  It's  the  iodine,  I  suppose."  Challis's  mind  travelled  to  his 
own  children,  who  were,  he  hoped,  soaking  in  the  iodine,  wallow- 
ing in  the  sand,  wading  in  the  shallows,  and  not  keeping  their 
things  out  of  the  water.  Should  he  ever  see  Mumps  and  Chob- 
bles  again  ?  Possibly.  Suppose  he  were  to  meet  them  years  hence, 
lengthened  and  completed,  at  Girton,  perhaps — even  engaged;  who 
can  tell? — would  they  know  him  again?  His  thoughts  rushed 
swiftly,  more  suo,  to  the  construction  of  all  sorts  and  conditions  of 
social  horrors,  beginning  with  an  improbable  evening  party  with 
Chobbles  in  the  foreground,  and  her  married  sister,  and  a  fiendish 
necessity  for  explaining  to  a  dazzling  lady  who  was  charmed  with 
both  of  them,  that  they  were  his  children  by  his  former  marriage 
— the  very  identical  Mumps  and  Chobbles  he  had  so  often  told  her 
about!  But  that  dream  was  soon  sent  packing,  although  the 
dazzling  lady  said,  with  a  pleasant,  graceful  contempt  for  all  cor- 
relatives of  Grundy:  "You  must  come  and  see  me,  you  two  dear 


550  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

girls!  Do  let's  be  German,  and  take  no  notice  of  things.  Never 
mind  the  orkwidities,  as  my  husband  calls  them."  A  worse  phan- 
tasm followed.  Two  girls  in  mourning  beside  a  grave,  and 
•"Marianne,  daughter  of  James  and  Sarah  Craik,"  on  the  head- 
etone.  So  vivid  was  the  impression  that  the  words  were  on  his 
lips :  "  Mumps  and  Chobbles,  don't  you  know  me  ? "  He  shook  it 
off,  denouncing  its  intrinsic  absurdity,  even  while  he  admitted  he 
had  no  justification  for  doing  so.  Marianne  would  die,  and  so 
would  he,  and  neither  would  be  beside  the  other  when  the  hour 
came. 

"Am  I  going  too  quick  for  you?"  said  the  Rector.  He  had 
broken  into  his  tremendous  stride,  as  he  was  always  apt  to  do 
when  not  checked.  Challis  admitted  his  limitations,  and  sug- 
gested that  they  might  go  easily  up  this  hill.  As  this  hill  was  a 
short-cut  across  a  curve  of  the  road,  and  the  path  over  it  was  zig- 
zagged, and  landslipped,  and  fern-grown,  besides  seeming  to  consist 
almost  entirely  of  rabbit-holes,  it  was  not  a  hill  to  go  up  easily,  in 
any  literal  sense.  But  Challis  had  only  intended  to  suggest  mod- 
eration. He  gave  his  whole  soul  to  avoiding  burrows,  and  reached 
solid  ground  alive.  As  he  approached  the  top,  alongside  of  his 
companion,  he  was  aware  of  a  huge  dog,  blue-black  against  the 
sky,  on  the  ridge  in  front  of  them.  Saladin  appeared  to  be  wait- 
ing for  them,  and  to  have  time  on  his  hands.  Whistled  to,  he 
condescended  to  trot  towards  them,  the  sooner  to  meet.  Inter- 
rogated as  to  his  reasons  for  being  there  by  himself,  he  kept 
silence,  but  smelt  his  questioners. 

Perhaps  he  wasn't  by  himself.  Surmise  inclined  to  the  sup- 
position that  the  carriage  was  in  the  neighbourhood;  probably 
Lady  Arkroyd,  driving  back  from  Thanes,  said  the  Rector.  But 
attentive  listening  established  carriage-wheels  on  the  road  from 
Furnival — the  opposite  direction. 

"  It's  Miss  Arkroyd  coming  from  the  station.  She  was  coming 
by  the  two-forty  from  Euston."  So  spoke  Challis. 

The  Rector  looked  full  at  him.  "  How  did  you  know  ? "  said  he. 
He  seemed  a  good  deal  surprised. 

"  Because  she  told  me,"  said  Challis.  He  in  his  turn  seemed 
surprised  at  the  surprise  of  the  other,  and  interrogation  remained 
on  the  face  of  both.  Saladin  seemed  able  to  wait. 

After  a  moment  the  Rector  said  suddenly:  "Because  she's  been 
away  at  her  sister's — Brayle  Court,  you  know — the  Felixthorpes'." 

"  Yes ;  why  not  ?  She  told  me  three  weeks  ago  she  was  coming 
to-day.  She  drove  to  Bletchley  from  Brayle." 

Athelstan  Taylor's  face  was  a  funny  mixture  of  perplexity  and 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  551 

mild  reproach,  not  without  confidence  in  his  companion.  "  But 
why  didn't  you  say  so? "  said  he. 

"  You  mean  when  you  mentioned  her  just  now — just  before  we 
came  to  Jim?  Well! — because  I  didn't  want  to  spoil  our 
walk.  .  .  .  There's  the  carriage !  " 

The  carriage  was  there,  in  the  road  some  distance  below,  and 
was  whistling  for  Saladin.  He  appeared  to  accept  the  whistle  as  a 
courtesy  on  its  part,  intended  to  keep  him  au  fait  of  its  move- 
ments and  whereabouts.  Otherwise  he  had  a  short  time  at  his  dis- 
posal, and  would  pass  it  in  giving  sanction  and  encouragement  to 
his  present  companions.  The  horses'  hoofs  and  the  whistle  passed 
and  grew  less  in  the  distance,  but  Saladin  remained  undisturbed 
and  statuesque. 

'*  No,"  said  Challis ;  "  I  didn't  want  to  spoil  our  walk.  Indeed, 
I'm  in  two  minds  if  I  shouldn't  do  better  to  say  nothing  at  all 
about  it." 

"About  what?" 

"  Well ! — that's  just  the  point.  However,  as  I've  leaked  out  this 
much,  I  suppose  I  may  as  well  tell.  About  myself  and  Judith 
Arkroyd." 

"  Oh  dear ! "  said  the  Rector,  "  I  had  been  supposing — I  mean 
I  had  been  beginning  to  hope — that  was  all  at  an  end.  ..." 

Saladin  had  no  more  time  to  spare  for  nonsense  of  this  sort. 
He  went  with  a  rush — the  rush  of  a  sudden  whirlwind — crashing- 
through  mere  valueless  briar  and  fern  like  gossamer;  but  sug- 
gesting that  it  was  for  their  sakes,  not  his,  that  he  steered  clear 
of  timber-trees.  The  carriage,  still  audible,  became  aware  of  him, 
and  stopped  whistling. 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  all  about  it  on  my  own  behalf.  And  I  sus- 
pect Judith  will  on  hers."  So  Challis  spoke,  when  the  lull  came. 
He  then  went  on  to  tell  all  that  this  story  has  told,  and  it  may  be 
more.  And  the  narrative  lasted  all  the  way  back  to  the  Rectory. 


CHAPTEK  XLIV 

THE  RECTOR'S  OPINION,  AND  WHY  IT  CARRIED  NO  WEIGHT.  OP  THE 
EFFICACY  OF  PRAYER,  AND  WHY  CHALLIS  DOUBTED  IT.  YET  THE 
RECTOR  TOLERATED  HIS  IMPIETY 

THE  Rector  sat  in  his  usual  chair  in  the  library  smoking  his 
usual  after-dinner  pipe,  his  only  concession  to  tobacco.  It  served 
a  turn  now — harmonized  his  life  with  that  of  his  friend,  who,  of 
course,  sat  on  the  other  side  of  the  rug,  that  both  might  be  con- 
scious of  an  empty  grate.  One  pays  this  tribute  in  the  summer, 
to  the  comfort  the  warmth  would  have  been  had  it  been  winter. 
Or  is  it  a  survival  of  some  ancestral  fire-worship? 

It  was  Challis's  second  pipe  in  the  day  that  he  was  lighting,  but 
his  fourth  smoke.  He  looked  as  though  something  narcotic  were 
wanting,  if  he  were  to  sleep  in  the  night  ahead  of  him.  His  fore- 
head throbbed,  the  Rector  felt  convinced.  Else  why  did  that  rest- 
less, nervous  hand  skim  it  over,  from  side  to  side,  then  press  the 
closed  eyelids  below  as  though  to  squeeze  a  pain  out? 

He  had  told  the  whole  of  his  story,  ending  it  up  during  dinner, 
and  doing  poor  justice  to  the  efforts  of  the  Rectory  cook. 
Athelstan  Taylor  had  listened  nearly  in  silence,  not  saying  how 
much  he  had  already  heard,  or  had  guessed,  of  the  way  things  had 
gone  since  his  attempted  intercession  with  Mrs.  Challis.  Challis's 
absences  from  England,  and  the  chance  that  their  London  visits 
never  coincided,  had  kept  them  apart  until  his  visit  to  London 
three  months  since.  On  that  occasion  they  did  little  more  than 
arrange  that  Challis  should  visit  the  Rectory  "  as  soon  as  he  could 
get  away."  And  he  couldn't — or  at  least  didn't — "get  away"  till 
August.  But  nothing  that  he  had  told  his  friend  had  occasioned 
the  latter  the  least  surprise. 

"  Well ! — that's  all,"  said  he,  as  he  lighted  his  pipe. 

The  Rector's  face  was  all  strength  and  pity  as  he  sat  looking 
at  his  storm-tossed  friend.  He  remained  silent  awhile  over  it. 
Challis  could  not  hurry  him  to  speech.  However,  there  was  the 
whole  evening  ahead. 

At  last  he  spoke.  "  That's  quite  all,  is  it  ?  Very  good.  Now,  I 
can't  and  won't  recommend  any  course  to  you,  because,  my  dear 
man,  you  are  under  an  hallucination,  and  you  wouldn't  pay  the 

552 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  553 

slightest  attention  to  anything  I  suggested.  But  I'll  tell  you,  if 
you  like,  what  I  shall  say  to  Judith  Arkroyd  if  she  comes  to  me  for 
advice." 

"What?" 

"I  shall  say,  'Don't!" 

"Don't  go  on  with  it,  that  is?" 

"  Exactly.  I  shan't  mince  matters.  I  shall  tell  the  girl  flatly  that 
I  think  she's  doing  wrong.  ..." 

"  But  why — but  why  ?  Surely  if  she  is,  I  am.  Or  more  so ! 
Far  more  so !  " 

"  Do  you  suppose  I  regard  you  as  a  responsible  agent  ? " 

"  I  don't  think  you  do.  But  I  am  one,  for  all  that  What  shall 
you  say  to  Judith  ? " 

"  That  I  do  regard  her  as  a  responsible  agent.  I  shall  entreat 
her  not  to  consent  to  such  a  mad  scheme.  I  shall  try  to  make  her 
see  the  folly  of  acting  under  panic  in  a  matter  of  such  vital  im- 
portance. I  shall  tell  her  plainly,  as  I  told  you  an  hour  ago,  that 
I  think  your  wife's  action  has  been  justifiable,  although  it  has  been 
violent  and  exaggerated.  I  admit  that,  you  know.  ..." 

"And  /  think  that  it  has  been  violent  and  exaggerated,  but 
admit  that  it  has  not  been  altogether  unjustifiable.  Isn't  that  the 
difference  between  us,  Rector  ? " 

"Precisely.  Well! — I  shall  say  so  to  Judith.  And  I  shall  put 
it  this  way  to  her.  'If  before  God  and  your  conscience  you  can 
disclaim  all  share  in  what  has  come  about,  if  you  have  never  by 
word  or  look  been  guilty  of  an  attempt  to  make  this  man's  plighted 
faith  to  his  wife  a  wavering  one,  then  it  may  be  you  may  marry 
him  and  not  live  to  repent  it.  But  if  it  is  otherwise,  you  may  be 
sowing  by  such  a  marriage  the  seeds  of  a  remorse  that  may  last  you 
a  life-time.'  ..." 

Challis  interrupted  him.  "Judith  is  absolutely  uncon- 
scious .  .  ."he  began. 

"Exactly,  exactly,  exactly!"  said  the  Rector,  nodding  in  a 
comfortable,  we-understand-all-that  sort  of  way.  "But,  about 
this  sort  of  thing,  sometimes  a  young  lady's  standard  of  uncon- 
sciousness is  low.  You  must  excuse  me  if  I  try — it's  a  toss-up  if 
I  succeed — to  make  her  probe  her  soul  to  its  lowest  depths." 

"  My  dear  Yorick ! — excuse  my  boning  Miss  Fossett's  name 
again;  but  it  does  suit  you  so  exactly — My  dear  Yorick,  whatever 
you  do  or  say  will  be  right — shall  be  right.  That's  the  rule  of  the 
game.  All  I  say  is,  don't  make  Judith  imagine  herself  to  have 
been  guilty  of  a  treacherous  scheme  that  never  entered  her  mind. 
She  assures  me  ..."  He  hesitated. 


S54  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Yes !  "  from  the  Rector. 

"Well! — she  assures  me  that  until  that  unfortunate — or  mind 
you ! — it  may  prove  fortunate — failure  in  self-restraint  .  .  .  sup- 
pose we  call  it!  .  .  ." 

"  Call  it  anything  you  like,  as  long  as  you  feel  properly  ashamed 
of  it." 

Challis  accepted  the  rule  of  the  game  he  had  just  laid  down 
loyally,  and  continued,  "  Until  that  moment  she  had  not  the  slight- 
est idea  that  I  had  ever  entertained  ..."  Again  a  hesitation. 

"  Precisely !  "  said  the  Rector.  Both  went  as  near  a  laugh  as  the 
contexts  permitted,  and  then  Challis  said,  knocking  the  ashes  out 
of  his  pipe,  "Well! — it's  no  use  talking."  But  his  friend  meant 
to  say  more.  "  It  may  be  no  use,"  said  he.  "  But  I've  picked  up 
— in  the  pulpit,  I  suppose — the  old  vice  of  the  sermon-monger,  and 
I  like  to  have  my  say  out.  ..." 

"  I  didn't  mean  you  were  to  stop,"  interjected  Challis. 

"  Then  I  shall  go  on,  as  per  contract."  He  appeared  to  put  semi- 
levities  aside  with  the  finished  pipe  he  laid  down,  and  stood  facing 
Challis  as  he  sat.  Standing  so,  he  looked  so  much  the  build  of  a 
soldier  that  his  cloth,  so  obnoxious  to  Challis,  almost  became  regi- 
mentals. He  resumed,  very  earnestly,  "I  shall  say  this,  too,  to 
Judith — no! — don't  be  afraid  I  shall  be  cruel  to  her.  Why! — 
haven't  I  known  her  since  she  was  a  little  tot,  and  sat  on  my 
knee?  ...  I  shall  tell  her  that  to  me  marriage  is  a  sacrament 
just  as  solemn  as  any  mutual  undertaking  where  each  party  is  in 
earnest  and  believes  in  the  earnestness  of  the  other  .  .  .  yes! — 
even  as  contracts  about  darling  money — and  that  no  antecedent 
relation  of  the  couple  can  flaw  the  pledge  once  given  .  .  .  yes! 
— I  am  prepared  to  go  any  length ;  but  never  mind  that  now.  .  .  . 
And  I  shall  tell  her  this: — that  however  obstinate  and  wrong- 
headed  your  wife's  conduct  may  have  been,  just  in  so  far  as  it 
has  been  provoked  by  any  misconduct  of  yours  or  hers — just  so  far 
are  you  morally  guilty  in  contemplating  any  step  which  will  make 
the  position  irretrievable." 

Challis  broke  into  his  momentary  pause.  "  Do  you  really  mean, 
soberly  and  seriously,  that  you  think  Marianne's  dragging  the 
children  away — my  Chobbles  was  like  your  Joan,  you  know, 
Yorick! — do  you  think  her  catching  at  a  legal  pretext  to  deprive 
me  of  them  has  not  given  me  a  free  hand  ?  What  right  has  Mari- 
anne to  condemn  me  to  a  loveless  and  lonely  life  .  .  .  ?  " 

"  Stop,  Challis — stop !  Stop  on  the  legal  pretext !  At  what  age 
of  the  world  has  man,  the  strong,  scrupled  to  catch  at  legal  pre- 
texts to  secure  the  betrayal  and  confusion  of  woman,  the  weak? 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  555 

Legal  pretexts,  mind  you,  whose  iniquity  stinks  in  every  legal 
phrase  that  relates  to  her,  in  every  statute  that  he  has  framed  and 
she  has  had  no  hand  in !  How  many  legal  pretexts  are  there  in  the 
whole  of  them  that  a  woman  can  catch  at  to  her  own  advantage? 
One  turns  up  now  and  again,  in  a  rare  conjunction  of  circum- 
stances, and  hey  presto! — we  are  all  on  the  alert  to  blame  the 
woman  who  does  it." 

"  You're  quite  right,"  said  Challis  ruefully.  "  It's  melancholy 
to  think  how  keenly  alive  one  is  to  other  folks'  sinfulness  when 
one  suffers  by  it  personally;  loses  one's  Chobbles,  for  instance.  I 
was  fond  of  the  young  person,  you  see,  Yorick!  Besides,  there's 
Mumps.  And  even  Bob  she  contrives  to  stint  me  of.  Either  that, 
or  the  boy  drifts  away  from  his  sisters." 

"  You  should  have  thought  of  all  that  when  you  ..." 

"Made  a  fool  of  myself?" 

"  Quite  so.  By-the-bye,  Challis,  have  you  asked  yourself — 
supposing  that  you  ratify  this  folly  of  yours,  as  I  understand  you 
propose  to  do — what  you  mean  to  tell  Bob  to  account  for  the  new 
order  of  things?" 

"  Yes,  frequently." 

"  And  have  you  answered  the  question  ? " 

"  No,  I  have  not." 

"  Do  you  see  any  prospect  of  answering  it  ? " 

"  None  whatever !  " 

"Very  well,  Challis!  Now  listen.  It  appears  to  me  that  you 
are  going  to  take  a  step  you  are  this  much  ashamed  of,  that  you 
cannot  look  your  own  son  in  the  face  about  it.  And  you  are  doing 
this  confessedly  in  case  the  passing  of  an  Act  of  Parliament  should 
make  that  step  impossible  at  a  future  time.  You  know  perfectly 
well  that — Judith  apart — you  would  welcome  that  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment, because  it  would  give  you  back  your  children,  and  at  least 
pave  the  way  to  a  reconciliation  with  their  mother.  .  .  .  Yes,  it 
would!  The  'living  in  Sin'  twaddle  would  die  a  natural  death 
before  an  Act  of  Parliament;  your  excellent  mother-in-law's  teeth 
would  be  drawn,  and  your  wife  would  come  to  her  senses  as  soon 
as  the  two  little  girls  were  delivered  at  Wimbledon  by  a  judicial 
order.  Once  you  two  were  face  to  face — just  think  of  it! — do 
you  suppose  old  times  wouldn't  come  to  the  rescue  ? " 

The  Rector  was  hitting  hard.  He  could  see  it  in  the  compressed 
lips,  the  nostril  and  eyelid  and  brow  that  would  not  be  still,  in 
the  face  that  was  hard  to  control  at  the  best  of  times.  Why  could 
he  not  keep  to  his  artillery  ?  Why  send  his  troops  into  the  enemy's 
country,  bristling  with  ambuscades?  Why  bring  Judith's  image 


556  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

back,  when  all  the  strength  of  his  case  lay  in  revival  of  the  days 
gone  by? 

But  he  did,  possibly  because  he  could  not  conceive  of  a  passion 
for  one  woman  dwelling  in  the  same  heart  with  an  affection  for  an- 
other. He  could  not  measure  the  force  of  the  personal  factor  in 
Judith.  He  had  never  been  under  fire. 

"  And  see,"  he  went  on  injudiciously — "  see  what  it  is  you  look 
to  gain  when  you  have  cut  yourself  finally  adrift  from  almost 
everything  that  has  been  precious  to  you  in  the  past.  What  are 
the  chances  of  happiness  for  a  couple  so  assorted?  Think  of  your 
difference  of  age!  .  .  .  well! — perhaps  that's  the  least  important 
point  .  .  .  think  of  the  difference  in  the  habits  of  a  life-time,  of 
the  sort  of  life  Judith  has  been  accustomed  to,  of  the  way  her 
pride  may  suffer  .  .  .  and  not  only  hers — yours  too— yours  too, 
my  dear  Challis,  in  a  thousand  ways!  Consider  this  too;  what 
right  have  you  to  take  for  granted  that  she  will  ever  be  forgiven 
by  her  family?  You  say  they  are  now  at  daggers  drawn.  What 
claim  have  you  to  ask  such  a  sacrifice  of  her  as  the  surrender  of 
her  relations  with  her  parents  and  all  the  associations  of  her  child- 
hood? Think  of  it!" 

A  moment  after  he  perceived  he  had  pushed  his  argument  too 
far.  Challis  said  firmly,  "I  accept  Judith's  readiness  to  make 
this  sacrifice  as  a  sure  proof  of  her  feelings  towards  myself.  I 
see  in  it  a  guarantee  of  a  happiness  far  beyond  my  deserts.  It  is 
because  she  is  ready  to  give  up  so  much  for  me  and  risk  her  whole 
life  in  my  keeping  that  I  am  rushing  the  position.  I  cannot  have 
her  think  hereafter  that  our  union  was  made  impossible  by  my 
remissness — by  my  faineantise — at  a  critical  time." 

The  Rector  walked  uneasily  about  the  room.  "  Oh  dear,"  said 
he,  "  I  wish  to  Heaven  that  Bill  would  get  itself  brought  into  the 
Lords  and  rejected,  tout  a  I'improviste,  before  you  could  arrange 
this  madness.  Then  you  would  have  a  cool  twelvemonth  to 
think  it  over  in.  And  perhaps  you  would  both  come  to  your 
senses." 

"  And  perhaps — d'autant  plus  a  I'improviste — that  Bill  would 
pass  the  Lords  and  become  law.  How  should  I  seem  then  to  the 
girl  who  is  ready  to  throw  all  away  for  me  now?  Do  you  con- 
ceive that  I  should  be  able  to  console  myself  for  the  wrong  I  had 
done  by  dragging  back  to  my  home  a  wife  whose  jealousy  ...  I 
must  call  it  so — poor  Polly  Anne!  ..." 

"  What  else  can  you  call  it  ?  " 

"There's  no  other  word  in  the  dictionary.  What  was  I  say- 
ing?. .  .  oh,  a  wife  whose  jealousy  would  by  that  time  have 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  557 

every  justification.  Where  would  the  happiness  be  in  all  that,  and 
for  whom  ? " 

"  In  no  case  can  you  hope  for  an  immediate  reconstitution  of 
your  eld  home  life.  You,  Challis — excuse  me — have  stirred  up 
too  much  mud  for  the  pool  to  become  clear  in  a  moment.  But  re- 
member Disraeli's  phrase — the  'magic  of  patience."' 

"  A  good  phrase,  a  very  good  phrase !  I  am  game  for  any 
amount  of  Hope,  dear  Yorick — hypothetical  Hope,  of  a  state  of 
things  that  will  never  come  about!  If  it  did,  I  might  get  some 
sort  of  consolation  out  of  it.  What  would  Judith  ? " 

The  Rector  was  handicapped  by  his  disbelief  in  Judith,  whom  he 
did  not  credit  with  overmuch  heart;  certainly  not  with  one  that 
would  break  on  slight  provocation.  He  could  not  say  anything 
of  this  to  this  passionate  fool  of  a  man,  over  head  and  ears  in  love. 
Or  he  might  have  replied,  "Don't  you  fret  about  Judith.  She'll 
be  all  right  enough."  As  it  was,  he  could  only  keep  closed  lips, 
and  pace  about  the  room.  Challis  continued: 

"  And,  after  all,  we  are  leaving  the  most  probable  possibility  of 
the  lot  quite  out  in  the  cold.  Suppose  the  mad  scheme — Judith's 
marriage  with  me — does  not  come  off,  and  the  Bill  passes.  Sup- 
pose that  I  am  inconsequent  enough  to  jump  at  the  new-fledged 
legal  powers  of  depriving  Marianne  of  her  children,  after  damning 
her  uphill  and  down  for  doing  the  very  same  thing  herself;  sup- 
pose me  with  my  family  back  on  the  hearth — crying  and  fright- 
ened probably — and  never  a  mother  to  see  to  them!  Suppose,  in 
fact,  that  Marianne  stands  to  her  guns !  How  then  ?  " 

"  Other  men  have  been  in  the  same  position  before  now."  Per- 
haps the  speaker  was  thinking  of  himself. 

"  Can  you  name  a  case  in  which  no  substitute  for  the  mother 
existed,  and  the  father  was  not  at  liberty  to  provide  one?  Please 
exclude  salaried  employees  from  the  answer." 

"  Oh,  I  wasn't  going  to  go  that  length.     Heaven  forbid !  " 

"You  must  observe,"  Challis  continued,  "that  divorce  a  vinculo 
is  only  available  if  my  wife  arranges  about  the  co-respondent.  7 
can't ! "  He  added  in  a  voice  that  showed  how  strangely  racked 
his  feelings  were,  "  Poor  Polly  Anne ! — she  wouldn't  the  least  know 
how  to  set  about  it." 

"I'm  horribly  sorry  for  you,  Challis,"  said  the  Rector.  "I  am 
indeed!  I  would  go  the  length  of  wishing  that  bigamy  could  be 
sanctioned,  in  certain  cases,  only  that  you  are  quite  the  wrong 
man  for  it.  You  wouldn't  enjoy  it." 

"Have  I  not  a  foretaste  of  its  horrors?"  said  Challis.  "You 
see,  Yorick  dear,  when  Love  comes  in  at  the  door,  Patriar- 


558  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

chal  ideas  fly  out  at  the  window.  Jacob  was  a  cucumber.  I'm 
not!" 

"  Well  I — Jacob  must  have  loved  Rachel,  after  a  fashion.  Seven 
years!  .  .  .  consider!  ..." 

"  Oughtn't  it  to  be  read  l  weeks,'  perhaps  ?  Criticism  is  very 
accommodating  about  the  seven  days  of  Creation.  Make  it  weeks." 
The  conversation  became  irrelevant. 

But  after  a  good  deal  more  talk  of  the  same  sort,  an  hour  later, 
Challis  said,  u  You're  not  a  consistent  Rector,  do  you  know !  You 
said  when  we  began  that  you  couldn't  and  wouldn't  advise  me. 
And  you  have  substantially  advised  me  to  tell  Judith  to-morrow 
that  we  must  leave  the  forelock  of  opportunity  alone,  and  just  take 
our  chance  of  a  permanent  veto  on  matrimony,  if  that  Bill  goes 
through  the  Lords." 

"  Well ! — yes !  At  least,  it  comes  to  the  same  thing.  It  has 
leaked  out  in  conversation  what  I  should  have  said  to  you  if  I 
had  thought  you  would  take  my  advice.  ..." 

"  Which  would  have  been  .   .    .  ? " 

"  Which  would  have  been,  '  On  no  account  take  an  irrevocable 
step  under  pressure.'  Believe  me,  Challis,  if  you  do  this  thing, 
and  this  Bill  never  becomes  law  at  all,  and  then  you  live  to  repent 
of  the  knot  you  have  tied  indissolubly,  the  thought  hereafter  that 
you  gave  way  to  a  needless  panic  will  make  remorse  tenfold  more 
bitter." 

"Are  not  you,  when  you  say  that,  allowing  a  disbelief  in  the 
Bill's  passing  to  influence  you  ? " 

"  I  may  be,  a  little.  But  not  nearly  so  much  as  I  am  by  a  belief 
I  must  try  to  explain  to  you  .  .  .  well! — it's  none  so  easy.  But 
I  thought  I  had  succeeded  in  explaining  it  to  myself  too."  He 
paused  a  few  seconds,  then  got  clearer.  "  It's  something  like  this. 
I  can't  conceive  that  any  retrospective  clause  of  the  Act  could  de- 
clare valid  a  marriage  the  illegitimacy  of  which  the  parties  them- 
selves had  acknowledged  during  the  period  of  its  legal  invalidity. 
Do  you  see?  .  .  .  You  would  very  likely  word  it  more  clearly 
than  I  can." 

"  No — that's  as  clear  as  daylight.  But  I  am  not  prepared  to  ac- 
knowledge the  illegitimacy  of  my  marriage  with  Marianne." 

"How  can  you  act  upon  it,  to  the  extent  of  marrying  another 
woman,  without  acknowledging  it?" 

"If  I  were  not  under  compulsion  to  acknowledge  it,  should  I 
ever  have  thought  of  marrying  the  other  woman?  I  plead 
coercion.  Marianne  dissolved  our  marriage.  I  had  no  hand 
in  it." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  559 

"  Coercion  or  no,"  said  the  Rector,  "  it  comes  to  the  same  thing. 
No  retrospective  clause  could  declare  valid  a  marriage  that  had 
been  voided  by  one  of  the  parties  yielding  to  a  coercion  quite 
within  the  rights  of  the  other  to  impose.  Not  that  I'm  sure  there 
isn't  a  sort  of  general  legal  usage,  that  no  one  can  claim  legal  ad- 
vantage from  the  illegality  of  his  own  action." 

"  I  see,"  said  Challis.  "  Heads,  deceased  sister's  husband  wins. 
Tails,  deceased  wife's  sister  loses!  But  how  would  such  an  in- 
terpretation of  retrospective  action  affect  me  and  Judith?" 

"  Why,  clearly !  If  the  Bill  passed  ever  so,  your  marriage  with 
Marianne  would  remain  void.  It  would  class  with  any  other  con- 
tract, illegal  at  the  time,  whose  illegality  had  been  subsequently  ac- 
knowledged and  acted  on.  I  heard  once  of  a  curious  case  in 
point.  Two  young  people  had  got  married,  knowing  nothing  of  a 
consanguinity  between  them,  owing  to  an  old  family  quarrel.  The 
girl  was  really  a  very  much  junior  aunt  of  the  young  man;  their 
respective  mothers,  daughters  of  the  same  father,  having  been  born 
forty  years  apart.  Of  course,  the  children  of  this  atrocious  mar- 
riage were  illegitimate." 

"Did  they  part  when  they  found  it  out?" 

"  Oh  dear  no !  They  brazened  it  out — said  the  meaning  of  the 
term  '  aunt '  was  clear.  Aunts  had  fronts,  and  so  forth.  The  gen- 
tleman calls  his  wife  aunty  to  this  day,  I  believe.  Perhaps 
you've  seen  the  people?  They've  a  large  property  in  the  South 
Riding  of  Yorkshire." 

But  Challis  hadn't,  and  didn't  know  their  name  when  men- 
tioned. He  seemed  more  interested  in  his  own  affairs.  "  If  I  un- 
derstand you,"  said  he,  "your  advice  is — not  to  marry,  in  view  of 
the  possibility  of  this  new  enactment  not  acting  retrospectively  in 
cases  of  couples  disunited  by  mutual  consent,  at  a  time  when 
law  held  that  no  union  existed.  Let's  pretend  my  consent  was 
given,  this  time,  for  argument's  sake." 

"You  have  stated  the  case  admirably.  That  is  my  advice. 
Wait!" 

"You  have  a  beautiful  confidence,  Yorick,  in  Acts  of  Parlia- 
ment— before  they  are  made!  Would  it  be  reinforced  or  weak- 
ened, I  wonder,  by  a  perusal  of  the  Statutes  at  Large?  Doesn't 
an  element  of  hopefulness  come  in  ? " 

"Hm — well — perhaps!  That's  my  advice,  anyhow.  And  that's 
the  advice  I  shall  give  to  Judith  Arkroyd,  if  she  comes  to  consult 
me.  I  shan't  volunteer  anything." 

"I  wish  I  could  think  as  you  do — about  the  effect  of  the  Act. 
I  mean."  Challis's  manner  was  to  the  last  degree  fitful  and  un- 


560  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

easy.  "  I  mean  I  wish  I  could  be  sure  it  would  leave  the  question 
open." 

The  Rector,  returning  to  his  friend's  side  after  one  of  his  walks 
about  the  loom,  laid  his  strong  hand  on  his  shoulder,  and  the  sense 
of  its  strength  was  welcome.  "  Challis,  Challis ! "  said  he, 
earnestly,  "  can  you  not  read  in  your  own  words  how  well  you 
know  that  you  are  acting  under  panic  ?  Ask  your  heart — ask  your 
conscience — if  a  wish  for  an  extension  of  time  would  be  possible 
in  a  mind  really  made  up — a  mind  really  believing  such  a  step  as 
you  propose  to  take  a  right  and  honourable  one!  Confess  that 
the  reason  you  would  be  glad  of  a  respite  is  that  you  are  none  so 
sure,  after  all,  that  what  you  do  is  the  wisest  course  for  either 
yourself  or  your  wife ;  or,  for  that  matter,  for  Judith." 

Challis  seemed  for  a  moment  puzzled  about  his  meaning.  Then 
he  said,  "  Do  you  mean  that  you  doubt  the  reality  of  my — of  my 
love  for  Judith?"  He  seemed  half  ashamed  of  it,  too! 

"  I  mean  that  I  think  you  are  besotted  about  her — bewitched  by 
her  woman's  beauty — the  slave  of  an  inclination  you  may  live  to 
repent  one  day  in  sackcloth  and  ashes.  Well ! — one  can  under- 
stand it  all,  down  to  the  ground.  You  are  not  the  first  ..." 

Challis  flushed  a  little  angrily,  and  began,  "Do  you  mean  that 
Judith  is  .  .  ."  He  hesitated. 

The  Rector  caught  his  meaning,  and  interrupted  him.  "A 
flirt?"  said  he.  "No — I  didn't  mean  that;  though,  mind  you,  I 
can't  give  the  young  lady  complete  absolution  on  that  score.  What 
I  meant  was  that  mighty  few  men  in  the  world  get  through  life 
without  knowing  all  about  this  sort  of  thing  from  experience. 
Perhaps  your  catching  the  fever  so  late  in  life,  after  two  mar- 
riages, makes  the  case  exceptional.  However,  as  I  told  you,  I 
don't  regard  you  as  a  rational  being  at  present;  so  I  won't 
preach." 

He  had  not  removed  his  hand  from  Challis's  shoulder,  and  the 
action  of  the  latter  as  he  turned  away  and,  crossing  to  the  window, 
looked  out  at  the  starlit  night,  had  its  shade  of  protest  in  it, 
though  it  could  not  be  said  that  he  had  exactly  shaken  the  hand 
off. 

Athelstan  Taylor  waited  a  moment,  looking  half  sorry,  half 
amused,  but  not  the  least  disposed  to  weaken  his  words.  Then  he 
followed  his  friend  to  where  he  stood  looking  out,  and  said  as  he 
replaced  his  hand — only  that  this  time  he  laid  his  arm  fully 
across  the  shoulder — "Remember  the  compact,  my  good  man,  re- 
member the  compact!  I'm  to  say  what  I  like." 

"  You  are  to  say  what  you  like,  dear  Yorick,  and  soften  nothing. 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  561 

You  think  me  a  fool,  and  I  am  one.  But  the  fact  that  my  folly 
is  carried  nem.  con.  won't  get  me  out  of  the  difficulty  it  has  got 
me  into.  Blame  it  as  you  will — but  your  blame  won't  answer  the 
question  I  ask  myself  every  hour  of  the  day:  what  sort  of  value 
will  Judith  set  on  the  love  of  a  man  who  hung  fire  about  carrying 
out  his  pledges  till  it  was  too  late,  on  the  miserable  plea  that  it 
was  ten  chances  to  one  another  twelvemonth  of  vacillation  might 
be  possible?  What  right  has  any  man  to  put  expediencies,  cal- 
culations of  chance,  the  unforeseen  outcomes  of  this  or  that, 
against  the  well-being  of  the  woman  he  is  all  the  while  coolly  ask- 
ing to  give  herself  away  to  him?  No,  Yorick,  I  haven't  got  it  in 
me  to  go  and  say  to  Judith,  '  I  love  you ;  it  is  true.  But  if  I  wed 
you  now,  while  we  know  we  are  free  to  wed,  and  then  some  time 
repentance  comes,  it  will  be  a  bitter  thought  to  me  that — had  I 
waited '  .  .  .  et  cetera — don't  you  see  ? " 

"My  dear  Challis,  I  am  no  match  for  the  eloquence  of  a  gifted 
author  who  is  pleading  the  cause  of  his  own  inclinations.  ..." 

"  Even  when  he  ends  up  with  '  et  cetera  '  ? " 

"  Even  then.  But  remember  this — that  what  I  am  saying  to  you 
now  is  scarcely  meant  as  urging  definite  action  upon  yourself.  It 
may  have  seemed  so  in  form,  but  my  actual  meaning  has  been  to 
show  the  sort  of  advice  I  shall  give  Judith  if  I  have  the  good 
fortune  to  speak  with  her  in  time;  if,  that  is,  she  gives  me  the 
right  to  speak  by  speaking  first  herself.  I  shall  do  the  same  with 
the  Bart,  and  her  ladyship.  If  they  don't  take  me  into  their  con- 
fidence, I  shall  presume  they  don't  want  me  to  share  it." 

"  Talk  to  Judith  by  all  means.  But  Judith  won't  counsel  delay 
— I  feel  sure  of  it — if  she  supposes  that  I  shall  think  she  has 
done  so  for  my  sake.  She  knows  perfectly  well  that  the  readier 
she  is  to  sacrifice  herself  for  me,  the  keener  I  shall  be  to  confiscate 
the  knife.  If  she  were  to  plead  against  this  hasty  action  that  she 
herself  felt  insecure  in  it — would  rather  run  the  risks,  on  the 
chances — that  would  be  quite  another  matter.  But  she  won't  do 
that." 

"  If  it  comes  to  cross-fires  of  reciprocal  misgivings  and  misunder- 
standings— or  understandings,  if  you  like — between  you  and  Judith 
Arkroyd,  I  give  up,  and  there's  an  end  on't !  "  The  Rector's  laugh 
made  the  atmosphere  happier.  "But  I'm  afraid  my  general  con- 
clusion is  that  man  is  never  at  a  loss  for  good  reasons  for  doing 
anything  he  wants  to  do,  especially  when  it  involves  a  lady." 

"  You  may  be  right.     But.  it's  a  horrible  perplexity." 

Athelstan  Taylor  was  lighting  candles  for  bed.  For  it  was  past 
midnight.  As  he  took  Challis's  hand  to  say  good-night,  he  said  to 


562  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

him:  "We  superstitious,  old-world,  out-of-date  folk,  priests  and 
the  like,  are  in  the  habit  of  praying  to  be  guided  right  in  horrible 
perplexities.  Is  it  any  use  .  .  .  ? " 

"  Well ! — plenty  of  use  as  far  as  my  good-will  to  feel  with  you  is 
concerned?  But  to  my  inner  vision,  none!  To  my  thought, 
Omnipotence  is  already  doing  everything — everything  everywhere 
— and  I  don't  see  how  I  could  put  up  a  prayer  to  the  Top  Bloke 
.  .  .  pardon  my  using  an  expression  you  object  to  .  .  ." 

"Not  at  all.    Goon." 

".  .  .A  prayer  to  guide  me  right  without  appearing  to  sug- 
gest either  that  He  was  already  guiding  me  wrong,  or  that  the 
Bottom  Bloke — no  one  can  possibly  object  to  that — had  usurped 
his  functions." 

Strange  to  say,  the  Rector  seemed  not  the  least  shocked.  On  the 
contrary,  he  laughed.  "  All  right,  old  chap,"  said  he.  "  You  leave 
yourself  in  the  hands  of  the  Top  Bloke.  He'll  see  to  it  all  right. 
Good-night !  "  But  he  looked  back  as  he  opened  his  bedroom  door 
to  say,  "  Keep  the  gas  on  till  you  have  the  electric  light." 


CHAPTER  XLV 

HOW  CHALLIS  AND  JUDITH  MET  AGAIN  AT  TROUT  BEND,  AND  TALKED  IT 
OVER.  HOW  SHE  CRIED  OFF,  FEELING  SECURE.  AND  OF  THE  AR- 
RANGEMENT THEY  MADE.  OF  A  CENTENARIAN  WHO  GOT  HALF-A- 
SOVEREIGN 

IT  was  early  morning  at  Trout  Bend,  and  the  man  who  sat  on 
the  moss-grown  beechen  root  this  story  told  of — more  than  a  year 
ago  now — was  turning  over  in  his  heart  all  that  had  come  about 
in  that  short  time,  and  trying  to  say  to  himself  point-blank  that 
it  was  no  fault  of  his  own.  He  succeeded  in  saying  it — said  it 
aloud  in  words,  that  there  should  be  no  doubt  at  all  about  it.  He 
said  it  twice,  in  fact,  and  seemed  in  the  end  dissatisfied. 

Every  little  incident  of  the  day's  life  seemed  to  throw  doubt 
on  the  point.  The  discordant  jay  that  shrieked  in  the  thicket  as 
good  as  cried  out  "  Liar !  "  and  fluttered  away  disgusted.  The 
squirrel  that  paused  half-way  up  the  beech-trunk  had  an  air  of 
shocked  reproach  in  his  very  large  and  startled  eye,  and  when  he 
moved  again  seemed  to  want  to  get  out  of  the  way  as  soon  as 
possible,  and  to  mix  with  sincere  Society  again.  The  fish  that 
leaped  in  the  pool  had  come  to  the  surface  this  time,  clearly,  to  say 
to  Challis:  "We  have  met  before,  and  my  life  has  not  changed. 
Yours  has,  and  you  have  only  yourself  to  thank  for  it !  Why  need 
you  leave  your  native  waters  uncompelled  ? " 

Challis  denied  the  suggestion  his  own  mind  had  made.  He  had 
had  to  share  in  what  followed;  his  exodus  from  those  waters  had 
been  compulsory.  Or,  rather,  was  it  not  true  that  the  waters  had 
drained  away  from  him,  and  left  him  to  find  another  pool  down- 
stream, or  die  unnourished  on  the  dry  sands?  But  it  was  a 
metaphor  that  rang  false,  and  he  dismissed  it  impatiently;  the 
more  so  that  some  mental  distortion,  akin  to  the  one  he  invented 
the  strange  name  for,  must  needs  intrude  an  unwarranted  image 
of  an  angler  with  rod  and  line,  and  rouse  him  to  an  indignant 
denial  of  that  angler's  identity.  Whose  fault  soever  it  was,  it  was 
none  of  Judith's. 

And  as  he  thought  this,,  there  she  was  herself,  crossing  the  lit- 
tle plank  bridge  where  the  convict  dropped  the  ring,  and  found  it 
again  so  many  years  too  late. 

563 


564  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

He  was  on  his  feet  in  a  moment,  and  on  his  way  to  meet  her. 
He  had  a  double-barrelled  kiss  ready  on  his  lips,  supposing  the 
coast  clear  at  the  moment  of  their  meeting.  Saladin,  who  was 
present,  was  in  confidence,  and  didn't  count.  Botheration  take  that 
old  woman  gathering  sticks! — did  she  matter? 

Judith  thought  so,  evidently,  and  payment  had  to  wait.  "  Com- 
pany !  "  said  she.  She  was  looking  as  beautiful  as  ever — more  so ! 
"  She's  a  hundred  and  two,  I  believe,"  she  added.  "  But  one  has 
to  lay  down  a  rule  in  these  matters,  and  stick  to  it."  She  was 
referring  to  the  old  woman,  who  most  likely  neither  saw  nor  heard, 
or  if  she  did,  only  harked  back  to  eighty  years  ago,  and  thought, 
"Why  not?" 

All  Challis's  cloud  of  doubt  and  self-reproach  vanished  as  her 
consolatory  hand  lay  in  his  arm.  Something  of  her  masterful 
nature  was  in  the  touch  of  it,  communicable  through  nerve-cur- 
rents. It  reassured  him,  and  he  could  respond  to  its  pressure,  old 
woman  or  no! 

It  was  an  arranged  meeting:  much  taken  for  granted.  Con- 
versation to  go  on  presently  where  our  last  meeting  left  it.  Mean- 
while, short  recognitions  of  current  event. 

"  When  did  you  come  ? " 

"  The  day  before  yesterday." 

"  The  voice  of  gossip  cannot  say  you  followed  me  down  here. 
Not  that  it  would  matter !  " 

"I  fancy  we  are  pretty  transparent."  Challis  dismissed  the 
matter  as  a  slight  interest  only.  "  Are  we  peaceful  at  the  Hall  ?  " 

"  Oh — well !  One  short  row — a  very  small  one !  It's  rather  un- 
fortunate that  some  people  who  were  expected  have  cried  off.  And 
another  gang  had  just  gone.  So  my  dear  parents  ...  to  whom 
I  am  really  devoted;  and  they  are  so  good  and  upright  and  that 
sort  of  thing  .  .  .  what  was  I  saying  about  them  ? — oh  yes ! — my 
dear  parents  and  I  were  alone.  It  was  unlucky."  Challis  threw 
up  his  eyebrows  very  slightly,  and  made  a  barely  audible  note  of 
interrogation  through  closed  lips.  She  replied  to  it :  "  Yes — the 
usual  sort  of  thing."  And  they  walked  on  slowly  arm  in  arm,  not 
speaking. 

Presently  the  lady  resumed,  seeming  always  the  more  talkative 
of  the  two :  "  Compulsory  truce  this  evening,  I  suppose.  Most 
likely  Sibyl  and  Frank,  who,  I  understand,  is  ridiculous  about 
Sib.  Besides,  Mr.  What's-his-name  is  coming  .  .  .  what  is  his 
name?"  .  .  . 

"  Tell  me  who  he  is,  and  I'll  see  if  I  know." 

"Oh  dear! — man  that  talks  metaphysics.  .   .   ." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  565 

"Brownrigg?" 

"  Of  course !  Brownrigg.  Well ! — he's  coining  this  afternoon, 
so  we've  only  time  for  a  very  short  allowance  of  Family  Life.  I 
suspect  Brownrigg  of  having  an  Attraction  down  here,  but  I  can't 
for  the  life  of  me  find  out  who  it  is !  " 

"  Attractions  are  feminine  ?  " 

"  Always." 

"  Otherwise  I  should  have  thought  it  might  be  the  Rector." 

"  The  Reverend  Athelstan — dear  good  man !  Oh  no — it's  a  lady  I 
It  always  is.  But  did  the  Reverend  speak  of  Broadribb — Brown- 
rigg?" 

"  I've  got  an  impression  that  he  has  been  at  the  Rectory  more 
than  once — considerably  more.  Couldn't  exactly  say  why?" 

"There's  nothing  feminine  there — at  the  Rectory." 

Challis  was  beginning,  "Oh  yes! — there's  ..."  when  Judith's 
outburst  of  laughter  cut  him  short. 

"Dear  Aunt  Bessy!  She's  forty.  .  .  .  Oh  yes,  I  know  she's 
worthy !  "  She  laughed  more  than  need  was ;  then  recovered  her 
gravity,  and  said,  as  though  she  feared  her  laughter  might  have 
grated  on  her  companion :  "  Not  to  laugh  at  the  good  lady  ? — is 
that  it?  Very  well."  Judith's  mockery  for  once  seemed  just  short 
of  charming  to  her  lover,  to  whom  it  was  usually  one  of  her  hap- 
piest contrasts  to  Marianne's  unsympathetic  reverence  for  so  many 
things  her  husband's  derision  classed  as  beadledom.  This  time  he 
would  have  preferred  that  the  time-honoured  practice  of  making 
game  of  old  maidenhood  should  have  been  touched  with  a  lighter 
hand.  There  was  suggestion  of  a  consciousness  of  this  in  Judith's 
next  words:  "It  was  your  fault,  you  know,  Titus,  for  hinting  at 
Brownrigg.  It  was  quite  too  funny." 

Her  fascination  reasserted  itself;  indeed,  its  wavering  had  been 
of  the  slightest,  and  had  not  lasted  long  enough  for  acknowledg- 
ment. "  I  admit  it  was  a  laughable  notion,"  said  Challis.  "  How- 
ever, I  don't  think  an  enchantress  is  necessary  in  this  case. 
Athelstan  Taylor  would  account  for  anything,  and  you  know  he  is 
liberality  itself  towards  all  new  ideas.  He  told  me  yesterday  he 
thought  Graubosch  a  most  interesting  personality." 

"  Did  you — you  say  you  had  come  yesterday  ? " 

"  No— the  night  before." 

"You  and  the  great  Yorick — isn't  that  what  his  friend  Miss 
Foster  calls  him? — haven't  been  talking  of  Graubosch  all  that 
time?" 

"  Fossett.  Oh  dear  no!  We  have  been  talking  chiefly  of  .  .  .n 
A  pause.  ".  .  .  Well! — of  our  affairs." 


566  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"Meaning  yours  and  mine.  Eh  Men! — and  what  says  Sir 
Oracle?  .  .  .  No,  no! — no  irreverence,  indeed!  ...  oh  no! — 
you  said  nothing.  But  you  have  such  a  mobile  countenance."  A 
shade  of  protest  had  been  detectable,  presumably,  in  Challis's  face, 
and  he  had  disclaimed  it. 

"  Meaning  your  affairs  and  mine,"  said  he,  with  only  a  pooh- 
pooh  smile  for  the  sub-colloquy.  "  Sir  Oracle  is  in  opposi- 
tion." 

"I  knew  he  would  be — dear  good  man!  You'll  tell  me  I'm 
sneering,  I  know — but  I'm  not — if  I  say  .  .  ." 

"What?" 

"  That  his  is  such  a  beautiful  unworldly  character.  I  can  tell 
you  exactly  what  he  said  to  you." 

"  Then,  dearest,  I  needn't  tell  you.    Fire  away !  " 

"  He  said  we  must  on  no  account  take  an  irrevocable  step  in  a 
hurry;  and  must  trust  to  Providence  to  keep  His  eye  on  the 
Lords  when  the  division  comes,  and  make  sure  of  a  majority 
against  the  Bill." 

"  He  said  something  not  very  unlike  it.  A  good  shot !  But  he 
never  suggested  that  Providence  was  disposed  to  consider  our  in- 
terests. I  must  admit  that  I  don't  see  why  Providence  should. 
My  own  attitude  has  hardly  been  conciliatory."  Challis  then 
went  on  to  give  a  fairer  version  of  what  the  Rector  had  said.  As 
he  spoke,  a  touch  of  scorn  came  on  the  beautiful  face  beside 
him,  and  grew  and  grew.  And  he  fancied  the  pressure  of  the  hand 
on  his  sleeve  lightened. 

"  A  thorough  business  man's  view ! "  said  Judith,  when  he 
stopped.  "  Scarcely  so  unworldly  on  the  whole  as  our  good  Yorick 
generally  is!  I  don't  know,  though,  whether  I  ought  to  say  that. 
Beautiful  unworldly  characters  manage  their  affairs  unselfishly 
only  because  ..." 

"  Because  they  think  Providence  will  act  as  their  agent?  Is  that 
what  you  were  going  to  say  ? " 

"  Well ! — they  always  boast  that  it  pays  best  in  the  long  run. 
Anyhow,  this  clearly  was  the  business  view.  To  the  business 
mind,  with  its  faith  in  Law  and  Order  and  Representative  Gov- 
ernment and  things,  nothing  can  be  clearer.  You  and  Marianne 
have  cried  off  a  compact  Law  and  Order  condemned,  while  you 
still  had  a  right  to  do  so.  Is  it  creditable  that  the  New  Act  will 
tie  you  together  again,  willy-nilly  ? " 

"Dearest! — try  to  see  my  difficulty.  Don't  think  me  cowardly 
or  politic;  only  believe  that  it  is  a  difficulty  to  me,  and  a  serious 
one.  Suppose  us  wedded — to-morrow — before  the  passing  of  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  56T 

Act,  anyhow!  Suppose  that  when  it  comes  it  legitimates  retro- 
spectively every  marriage  that  was  not  acknowledged  void  by  both 
parties  while  it  was  still  an  unlawful  one ! " 

Judith  withdrew  her  hand  and  looked  away.  "  Have  you  not 
acknowledged  the  illegitimacy  of  yours  ? "  she  said  coldly. 

"  In  a  sense  I  have."  Challis  was  evidently  flinching  under  his 
consciousness  of  his  position. 

"  I  do  not  like  *  in  a  sense/  Titus.  Is  Marianne  your  wife  or 
not  ? " 

"  Listen  to  me,  dearest ! "  He  would  have  replaced  her  hand 
in  his  arm,  but  she  withstood  his  doing  so,  partly  qualifying  her 
resistance  by  a  pretence  of  finding  Saladin's  whistle.  He  con- 
tinued pleadingly :  "  Think  what  it  would  be  for  me  if  at  some 
future  time  my  two  little  girls  were  to  suffer  from  a  reproach  their 
brother  does  not  share,  and  charge  me  with  giving  my  boy  a  bet- 
ter hold  on  the  world  than  they  could  lay  claim  to.  .  .  ." 

"  It  was  their  reproach  from  the  beginning.  ..." 

"Yes — yes!  But  suppose  this  Act  would,  but  for  me,  have 
conferred  legitimacy  retrospectively.  ..." 

"  How  < but  for  you'?" 

"Why — clearly!  It  might  include  in  its  retrospective  action 
only  such  marriages  as  were  held  valid  by  one  or  other  party  at 
the  date  of  the  passing  of  the  Bill.  Mumps  and  Chobbles  might 
be  legitimate  or  no,  according  to  my  attitude  towards  their  mother 
about  our  separation.  It  seems  to  me  that  my  having  refused  to 
acknowledge  it  might  make  all  the  difference.  ..."  Challis 
paused  awkwardly.  For  he  had  suddenly  become  aware  that  he 
was  adducing  reasons  in  plenty  why  he  should  not  marry  Judith 
at  all.  He  had  not  meant  his  argument  to  go  that  length.  He 
was  only  showing  one  form  the  Nemesis  of  Repentance  might  take 
in  the  event  of  the  immediate  passing  of  the  Act.  He  was  losing 
sight  of  the  fact  that  if  the  Bill  was  thrown  out,  all  his  reason- 
ings would  apply  just  as  much  to  a  more  leisurely  union  during 
the  twelvemonth  of  respite. 

The  fact  is  he  wanted  to  eat  his  cake  and  have  it  too — to  get  the 
advantage  of  the  Act  for  his  children  and  to  avoid  the  guillotine 
himself.  If  he  and  Judith  were  not  married  in  time,  either  their 
project  would  be  made  impossible,  or  at  best  the  problem  of  justice 
or  injustice  to  the  children  would  stand  over  sine  die,  with  all  its 
present  difficulties  unsolved.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  they  got  mar- 
ried, the  Act  could  only  benefit  his  children  by  affirming  his  mar- 
riage with  their  mother  a  lawful  one,  and  declaring  Judith  the 
second  wife  of  a  bigamist.  Unless,  indeed,  a  dexterous  special 


568  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

clause  in  it  gave  his  rupture  with  Marianne  the  validity  of  a  di- 
vorce. Not  a  very  likely  provision  of  legal  ingenuity! 

How  little  idea  the  old  lady  gathering  sticks  must  have  had  of 
what  the  gentleman  was  talking — talking — talking  about  to  the 
lady,  whose  undisturbed  beauty  seemed  to  make  no  response,  or 
barely  a  word  now  and  then!  Her  centenarian  mind  probably 
thought  it  was  only  the  usual  thing — the  use  of  eighty  odd  years 
agone,  when  she  first  knew  of  it;  and  so  till  now,  except  folk  were 
changed  since  then. 

But  the  gentleman  would  have  done  well  to  say  less.  None  of 
his  earnestness,  none  of  his  perturbation — none  of  his  Law,  none 
of  his  Logic — made  matters  a  bit  better.  In  one  way  they  made 
it  worse.  A  sense  of  a  painful  contingency  crept  in  that  had 
hardly  had  sufficient  consideration.  How  if  in  the  labyrinth  of 
possibilities  that  sheer  Legalism  can  construct  over  the  grave  of 
Pair  Play  there  was  really  hidden  a  possible  indictment  for  big- 
amy? If  Challis  married  Judith,  his  first  wife  being  still  alive, 
with  the  reservation  that  the  latter  wasn't  his  wife  at  all,  how  then  ? 
Could  he  even  obtain  a  Special  Licence  at  Doctors'  Commons? 
He  would  have  to  declare  that  no  legal  impediment  existed,  and 
to  satisfy  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  that  his  reasons  for  want- 
ing it  were  sound.  Perhaps  his  Grace  would  be  crusty,  and  refuse 
it,  to  spite  him  for  marrying  his  Deceased  Wife's  Sister.  How- 
ever, the  idea  of  a  piqued  Prelate  hitting  below  the  belt  in  this  way 
relieved  a  growing  tension,  and  brought  a  smile  into  the  matter. 

Challis  was  glad  to  shift  away  from  a  perplexity.  After  a  pause 
of  silence  he  said :  "  Do  you  remember  how  we  walked  here — 
more  than  a  year  ago — and  you  told  me  you  had  given  up  the  idea 
of  Estrild?" 

Judith  replaced  the  hand  she  had  taken  away.  "  Oh,  so  well ! " 
said  she.  "I  was  so  sorry.  But  it  seems  to  me  that  if  my 
dearly-beloved  family  are  going  to  quarrel  with  me  about  my  mar- 
riage, I  deserve  to  play  Estrild  as  a  set-off.  I  shall  think  about  it." 

They  came  to  the  coppice-wood,  and  the  half-shade  of  its  light 
and  shadow-chequered  path  was  grateful;  for  the  sun  was  mount- 
ing, and  his  heat  beginning  to  tell.  Saladin  brushed  roughly  past 
them,  to  see — at  a  guess — that  all  the  tree-stems  were  in  order. 
Judith  leaned  a  little  more  on  the  arm  she  held. 

"Do  you  remember,"  said  she,  "how  I  called  you  Scroop,  and 
how  funny  it  made  you  look?  Oh  dear,  how  strange  it  does  all 
seem!" 

"I  remember.  And  how  I  couldn't  well  call  you  Judith  back. 
"Would  you  have  been  offended  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  569 

"  Should  I  ever  have  been  offended  at  anything  you  did,  dear 
love  ? "  Her  hand  was  pressed  between  his  arm  and  the  other 
hand,  that  had  come  across  to  caress  it. 

The  two  of  them  had  the  little  secluded  path  well  to  themselves; 
certainly  Saladin  didn't  count.  Now  was  the  time  for  those  kisses 
that  had  waited,  and  others,  if  need  were.  Challis,  as  he  took 
Judith  Arkroyd  to  his  heart,  felt  his  own  past  grow  insignificant 
and  dim.  This  was  Life! 

A  phantasmagoric  presentment  of  Great  Coram  Street  and 
Wimbledon  ran  rapidly  across  the  background  of  his  mind.  It 
was  wonderful  how  many  images  he  could  feel  the  dimness  of  at 
once.  Even  so,  the  man  who  fell  off  the  Monument  marvelled  at 
the  incredible  grasp  of  his  powers  of  recollection,  stung  to  a 
paroxysm  of  self-assertion.  Why  need  so  many  things  appeal  to 
be  forgotten;  each  one  a  bygone  to  itself;  a  faint  spark,  surely, 
but  craving  a  separate  extinction?  He  could  feel — oh  yes! — he 
could  feel — that  the  nourishments  of  his  life  in  those  days  were 
the  merest  refreshments.  This  was  a  banquet!  He  had  attained 
to  a  satiety  of  Love.  But  why  need  those  all-but-forgotten  satis- 
factions of  an  unpretentious  past  thrust  in  their  claims  for  recol- 
lection, each  with  its  ill-timed  reproach — "  You  did  not  despise  us 
then!"? 

There  was  no  need  for  him  to  forget  Kate.  She  was  little  more 
now  than  a  bad  misadventure  of  his  early  life.  But  there  was 
many  a  little  memory  of  Marianne  in  the  earlier  days  that  he 
would  have  to  oust  from  the  future  unless  his  every  hour  was  to 
be  cross-textured  with  a  weft  of  self-reproach.  One  little  paltry 
thing  went  near  to  madden  him  with  its  importunity.  Could  he 
never  touch  the  damask  cheek  of  his  enchantress  of  to-day  without 
an  intrusion  into  his  mind  of — Marianne's  mole  ?  Too  ridiculous ! 
— -many  will  say.  But  there  it  was — the  mole — back  in  this  man's 
inner  vision,  to  plague  him  with  a  reminder  of  that  long-ago  when 
he  rallied  its  proprietor — Marianne  was  eighteen  then — on  its  pos- 
session, but  congratulated  himself  at  the  same  time  that  it  was 
not  in  the  best  place. 

The  story  knows  Challis  too  well  to  attempt  to  make  the  oddities 
of  his  mind  plausible;  it  can  only  vouch  for  them.  About  minds 
it  cannot  vouch  for,  only  speculation  is  open  to  it.  It  makes  no 
pretence  to  know  the  inner  heart  of  the  beautiful  woman  whom  he 
conceives  to  be  so  entirely  his  own.  Whether  what  followed  was. 
on  her  part,  schemed  to  make  all  wavering  on  his  impossible,  &nd 
to  bind  that  skein  of  his  life  fast  in  hers,  or  whether  it  was  really 
what  it  seemed,  she  alone  could  tell.  The  story  has  no  blame  for 


570  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

her,  mind,  if  it  was  the  former !  She  was  within  her  rights — every 
woman's  rights. 

"Oh,  Scroop — dear  Titus — dear  love!  Let's  have  done  with  it 
and  forget  it  all — all  I  It  can  never  be,  and  we  both  know  it."  He 
had  released  her  waist  at  some  sound  of  footsteps  approaching  them 
as  they  stood  in  the  pathway,  but  had  kept  her  hands  in  his.  Who- 
ever it  was  was  not  in  sight  yet. 

"  'Odsbodikins,  dearest,  why — why — why  ?  Why  this  of  a  sud- 
den, out  of  the  blue  ? " 

"  No — dearest — no ! — it  is  truth.  I  am  in  earnest,  indeed.  It 
cannot  be!  "  He  would  have  taken  her  in  his  arms  again,  but  her 
outstretched  hand  on  his  breast  repelled  him.  "It  must  come  to 
an  end,  and  we  know  it.  ...  No — do  not!  .  .  ." 

"  Then  tell  me,  darling,  quietly ;  why  not — why  now !  " 

"  Listen,  Scroop !  I  see  it  all  so  clearly.  Yorick  is  right — good, 
clear-sighted  man!  If  we  get  married  in  a  mad  hurry,  under 
pressure,  just  to  avoid  this  legislative  Bill  business.  ..." 

"  Cutting  the  ground  from  under  our  feet  ?    Yes !  " 

"We  may,  as  he  says,  live  to  repent  it.  After  all,  we  are 
human ! "  The  footsteps  drew  nearer — became  a  passing  boy — 
caused  a  pause,  and  died  away,  leaving  Judith  to  continue :  "  Sup- 
pose that  all  goes  ill,  and  our  fruits  turn  out  Dead  Sea  apples, 
and  so  on!  Suppose  that  you  are  disappointed  in  me!  ..." 

"Never!" 

"  Foolish  man,  how  can  you  tell  ?  .  .  .  However,  this  you  can 
see:  that  if  we  fell  out,  you  and  I,  anyhow,  it  would  be  a  bitter 
thought  to  you  that  you  had  sacrificed  your  girls  for  my  sake, 
as  you  would  have  done!  You  said  so  yourself,  and  I  see  it." 

"  The  blame  would  not  be  mine."  Challis  got  it  said,  but  only 
just.  He  knew  at  least  that  he  was  dishonest  in  shirking  his  share 
of  the  blame.  He  went  on  to  excuse,  and,  of  course,  accuse,  him- 
self. "  What  right  had  Marianne  to  imagine  infidelities  for 
me?  .  .  .  Yes! — I  grant  you  'infidelity'  is  a  long  word.  But 
see  what  I  mean,  and  think  of  it.  Marianne  had  not  a  particle  of 
evidence  that  .  .  .  that  you  were  to  me  .  .  .  anything  that  any 
other  lady  is  not.  She  was  just  as  wrong  in  building  false  con- 
structions on  no  grounds  at  all.  ..." 

"  On  no  grounds  at  all  ?    Be  fair  to  Marianne !  " 

"Well — on  very  little!  .  .  .  She  was  just  as  unjust  in  using 
what  she  did  know  to  condemn  me  as  if  the  things  she  did  not  know 
had  never  happened.  The  accident  of  the  postscript  might  have 
happened  a  thousand  times  with  any  stranger.  As  to  anything  else 
that  had  passed  between  you  and  me,  Marianne  chose  to  take 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  571 

action  without  a  particle  of  proof,  and  she  is  to  blame  for  the  con- 
sequence. Yes,  Judith;  if  Marianne  hadn't  acted  as  she  did,  I 
should  have  locked  you  out  of  my  heart,  and  gone  my  way  in 
silence." 

"  Would  you  ? "  asked  Judith.  It  might  have  been  reproach ; 
but,  then,  it  might  have  been  mere  questioning  of  his  words. 
Challis  gave  himself  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,  and  let  Judith  go 
on.  "  And  if  you  had,  do  you  think  Marianne  wouldn't  have  found 
you  out?  Oh,  Scroop,  Scroop,  do  you  think  women  have  no 
eyes  ? "  She  had  a  half-laugh  for  what  she  ended  with :  "  You  and 
your  proofs  and  particles  of  evidence !  " 

He  gave  up  the  point.  "  Then  let  us  whitewash  Marianne," 
said  he,  "  and  make  it  all  my  fault.  How  much  nearer  are  we — 
how  much  nearer  to  plain  sailing?  It  seems  to  me  I  have  to 
choose  between  a  chance — only  a  chance,  mind  you ! — of  a  legal 
sanction  for  the  babies  .  .  .  and,  really,  dearest,  it's  not  a  thing 
I  have  ever  fretted  much  about.  ..." 

"  But  you  ought  to  have.     What's  the  other  choice  ? " 

"...  Between  a  chance  of  legitimacy  for  them  and  a  cer- 
tainty of  not  losing  you.  Can  you  wonder  that  I,  thinking  as  I 
do  of  these  legalities,  should  choose  the  last  ? " 

"  Listen,  Scroop,  and  don't  puzzle  me  with  any  more  arguments. 
You  make  my  head  spin.  I  can  only  see  the  thing  as  I  believe 
any  woman  would  see  it.  This  Parliamentary  business  may  cut 
us  asunder  for  ever ;  because  you  know  if  the  Bill  passes  you  won't 
be  able  to  divorce  Marianne.  If  I  am  to  give  you  up,  I  want  to  do 
it  here  and  now — to  get  it  done  and  part  at  once,  for  good.  ..." 

"  I  cannot  give  you  up.  ..." 

"  And  we  cannot  linger  on  through  a  life  of  miserable  uncer- 
tainty. Fancy  it! — next  year  the  whole  question  over  again — 
the  same  doubts — the  same  arguments!  No — let  us  part  and  have 
done  with  it !  " 

"  You  do  not  mean  what  you  say." 

"  Perhaps  not.  Perhaps  I  am  only  flinching  like  a  coward  from 
a  life  that  might  be  unendurable,  I  would  rather  have  my  tooth 
out  altogether  than  have  it  ache  for  a  twelvemonth.  So  what  can 
I  say  now  ?  I  am  ready,  if  it  can  be  arranged — that  I  don't  know 
about.  ..." 

He  interrupted  her.  "  And  I  am  ready — more  than  ready !  " 
And  this  time  she  did  not  repel  him  as  he  took  her  in  his  arms. 

"  But  mind,  dearest,"  said  she,  "  if  it  were  a  certainty  about  the 
little  girls,  I  should  still  say  we  ought  to  hesitate.  But  ..." 

"  But  it  isn't  certainty — even  if  the  Bill  passes  ever  so !  "    He 


572  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGALtf 

sealed  the  compact  on  her  lips — on  her  cheeks.    It  was  a  fait 
accompli. 

But  nothing  could  keep  all  those  memories  of  the  past  quite, 
quite  in  the  background.  They  were  all  in  evidence — dim  evi- 
dence ;  yes ! — even  that  confounded  mole  on  Marianne's  cheek. 

The  day  had  become  quite  hot  when  the  centenarian  faggot- 
binder  saw  the  lady  and  the  great  dog  say  adieu  to  the  gentleman 
in  the  light  summer  suit,  and  noted  with  some  satisfaction  that 
the  adieu  was  a  loving  one.  The  gentleman  seemed  to  watch  the 
vanishing  sunshade,  in  such  request  against  the  heat,  across  the 
little  bridge  and  out  of  sight,  to  the  last;  then  lit  a  cigar,  and, 
passing  near  her,  said  "  Good-morning,"  and  unprovokedly  gave 
her  what  she  thought  a  welcome  sixpence.  That  old  lady  and  her 
great-great-grandchild  called  at  the  Hall  next  day  to  say  the  gen- 
tleman had  given  her  half-a-sovereign  by  mistake,  and,  inquiry 
connecting  the  gentleman  with  Miss  Arkroyd,  procured  the  opinion 
of  the  latter  that  of  course  the  gentleman  meant  old  Mrs.  Inder- 
wick  to  have  it.  Who  thereupon  consigned  it  to  a  Georgian  purse, 
and  departed  with  benedictions. 

But  before  Challis  and  Judith  parted  they  had  planned  their 
campaign.  And  it  only  just  came  short  of  a  prompt  marriage  by 
special  licence.  Concession  was  made  on  two  points;  one  was  re- 
garded as  almost  out  of  court — namely,  the  chance  that  such  a 
union  could  be  regarded  as  bigamous.  For  was  it  conceivable  that 
a  law  that  quashed  his  paternity  of  his  own  children  could  indict 
him  for  his  marriage  with  their  mother?  It  seemed  grotesque; 
but  was  worth  a  word,  in  view  of  the  pranks  of  Themis. 

The  other  point  was  this:  So  great  a  certainty  might  exist 
among  political  informants  that  the  Bill  would  be  thrown  out  in 
the  Lords  as  to  make  the  proposed  step  a  ridiculously  strained  pre- 
caution, and  needless  under  the  circumstances.  Unanimity  of 
one  or  two  strong  Parliamentary  authorities  would  be  practical 
certainty,  if  they  held  to  their  opinions  up  to  the  brink  of  the 
division.  If  the  political  sky  changed,  causing  them  to  waver, 
prompt  action  might  be  necessary. 

In  any  case  Challis  was  to  procure  a  special  licence,  to  be  used 
or  otherwise,  at  discretion,  the  date  chosen  being  as  late  as  he 
should  think  safe  under  the  circumstances.  Several  minor  diffi- 
culties had  to  be  disposed  of,  but  the  only  point  necessary  to  the 
story  is  that  Judith  was  to  hold  herself  in  readiness  to  become  a 
bride  at  a  short  notice,  and  that  Challis  was  to  be  answerable  for 
time  and  place  and  the  making  of  all  the  necessary  arrangements. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  573 

Trousseaux,  travelling  gear,  and  the  like,  did  not  need  considera- 
tion at  present.  For,  in  fact,  both  parties  distinctly  understood 
this  marriage  to  be  a  mere  precautionary  measure,  legally  ir- 
revocable, but  otherwise  nil.  The  bride  would  return  to  her 
paternal  hearth,  and  might  even  make  no  allusion  to  the  little 
event  of  the  morning.  The  birds  would  not  nest,  but  their  names 
would  be  entered  as  man  and  wife  on  some  parish  register. 

Challis  said  nothing  to  Athelstan  Taylor  of  this  scheme.  He 
did  not  wish  to  put  his  friend  to  the  necessity  of  either  concealing 
it  and  assenting  to  it,  or  declaring  it  and  fighting  it.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  the  Rector  would  be  compelled  to  an  attitude  of  pro- 
test by  his  position,  and  that  the  most  prudent  as  well  as  the  fair- 
est course  for  himself  would  be  to  hold  his  tongue. 

So  he  finished  his  visit  at  the  Rectory,  and  said  farewell. 


CHAPTER  XLVI 

HOW    LIZARANN    SAW    THE    SEA,    AND    A  CHINESE    LADY    WROTE    A    BAD 

ACCOUNT  OP   HER  TO   HER   FRIENDS.  HOW   IT   NEVER  REACHED   JIM, 

AND   MISS  FOSSETT  WAS  WIRED  FOR.  HOW  THE  RECTOR  HAD  TO  GO 
TO  CHIPPING  CHESTER. 

THE  tide  was  coming  in  at  Chalk  Cliff,  and  the  Children,  mean- 
ing thereby  all  those  on  the  coast  at  the  time,  were  little  glowing 
spots  of  perfect  unconcern;  entire  freedom  from  care,  from 
memory  of  the  past  and  apprehension  for  the  future;  things  as  un- 
encumbered of  responsibility  and  pain  as  tracts  of  smooth  and 
furrowed  sands,  beneath  a  broiling  July  sun,  with  endless  pools  at 
choice  awaiting  the  returning  flood,  and  little  boats  to  navigate 
them,  and  nets  to  capture  prawns,  and  sand-castles  and  spades  and 
wooden  panniers  you  could  pat  the  sand  into,  could  make  them. 
And  the  Children  were  paddling  in  the  pools,  and  insuring  swift 
and  prosperous  passages  to  the  vessels  under  their  control  by 
pushing  them — for  there  was  never  a  breath  of  wind — and  chasing 
elusive  prawns  and  unknown  specimens  beneath  the  rocks,  and  put- 
ting their  fingers  in  anemones,  and  molesting  crabs,  and  not  suc- 
ceeding in  removing  limpets  suddenly  from  their  holdings,  because 
the  limpets  were  too  sharp  for  them.  Also  they  were  hard  at 
work,  the  more  purposeful  ones,  erecting  sand  castles  the  very 
self-same  shape  as  the  limpets,  and  meeting  in  the  middle,  when 
they — the  Children — burrowed  from  opposite  sides  to  complete 
the  said  castles  with  four  or  even  more  tunnels,  essential  to  per- 
fect structure;  and,  ending  with  their  country's  flag,  in  tin,  upon 
the  summit,  contentedly  awaited  the  coming  of  the  tide  to  wash  it 
all  away,  and  leave  them  new  clean  spaces  for  to-morrow. 

Why  is  Lizarann  content  to  watch  the  Children  in  the  sun,  to 
be  dissociated  from  them  as  she  lies  upon  the  sand  in  the  shade 
of  that  big  white  umbrella  a  guardian  nurse  manipulates  in  her 
interest?  Why  does  she  not  seize  the  glorious  opportunities  of 
Life  at  its  best;  of  Life  those  babies  yonder,  too  happy  now  to 
measure  their  own  happiness,  will  look  back  on  one  day  not  so 
very  far  hence  as  a  sweet  Elysium  of  the  past,  a  heaven  of  un- 
questioning content  the  clouds  of  the  years  to  come  will  never 
let  them  know  again?  Why  does  Lizarann — our  Lizarann! — 

574 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  575 

prefer  to  lie  still  and  converse  with  the  good  woman  who  has 
charge  of  her  ? 

Well ! — you  see,  she  got  tired  with  the  journey  yesterday.  That's 
all.  You'll  see  she'll  pick  up  when  she's  been  here  a  few  days,  and 
the  sea  air  has  had  time  to  tell.  Besides,  it  is  notorious  that  its 
first  effect  on  you  is  always  enervating;  and  then  you  take  quinine, 
and  it  gives  you  a  headache. 

.  Whatever  the  cause,  Lizarann  accepted  the  effect,  and  was  con- 
tent to  watch  the  Children  in  the  middle  zone  of  best  building  sand, 
not  too  wet  and  not  too  dry,  all  working  hard  to  be  ready  for  the 
tide  that  was  heralding  its  coming  in  a  major  key,  as  is  the  manner 
of  tides  that  have  died  sadly  away  to  sea,  six  hours  since,  in  a 
minor.  A  false  musical  metaphor  to  him  whose  hearing  goes  no 
deeper  than  the  surface  of  sound — true!  But  not  to  Lizarann, 
though  she  knew  as  little  as  we  how  to  word  the  difference  rightly 
between  the  joy  of  the  sea  returning  and  the  lament  of  its  de- 
parture. For  this  is  written  because  Lizarann  wanted  to  ask  the 
lady  in  charge  of  her  questions  about  this  varied  sounding  of  the 
waters,  noted  by  her  in  the  wakeful  hours  of  her  first  night  at  the 
nursing-home. 

This  lady  was  benevolent,  Lizarann  was  convinced.  But  for  all 
that,  she  was  like  the  stout  Chinese  carved  in  wood  who  sat  all 
day  long  in  the  window  of  the  tea-shop  Aunt  Stingy  bought  a 
quarter  of  a  pound  at  a  time  at,  nearly  opposite  Trott  Street. 
Only  then  this  image  was  evidently  a  portrait  of  a  benevolent 
Chinese,  of  whom  no  little  girl  would  have  been  afraid  to  ask 
questions  about  the  tides.  Lizarann  reasoned  on  the  position  be- 
fore she  ventured  on  speech.  Then  she  said :  "  I  heard  that  all  the 
time  I  was  in  bed.  Yass! — through  the  open  window." 

"Poor  little  woman!"  said  the  lady.  "Yes,  my  dear,  that's 
the  water.  It's  the  sound  it  makes." 

"  It  didn't  kept  me  awike,"  said  Lizarann,  anxious  not  to  reflect 
upon  the  sea,  of  which  she  knew  her  Daddy  had  a  high  opinion. 
But  the  lady  had  said,  "  Poor  little  woman ! "  on  general  prin- 
ciples; not,  as  the  little  girl  supposed,  with  reference  to  wakeful- 
ness  caused  by  it. 

"  Some  little  girls  like  it  very  much,"  was  the  comment. 

Lizarann  wished  this  lady  had  thrown  out  a  hint,  for  her  guid- 
ance, as  to  whether  these  were  good  little  girls  or  bad  little  girls. 
She  would  have  to  risk  something,  evidently.  "  I  like  it  very 
much,  please,"  she  said  tentatively.  "  Please,  ma'am,  don't  you  ? " 

"  I  can't  say  I  do,  my  dear.  It  fusses  me.  But  then  I  sleep  at 
the  back."  Lizarann  was  disappointed.  She  had,  in  fact,  been. 


576  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

cherishing  an  idea  that  the  Mandarin-like,  placid  seeming  of  this 
lady  had  resulted  from  the  soothing  lullaby  of  the  ocean,  heard 
night  and  day.  Clearly  it  would  be  safest  to  leave  personal  ex- 
periences and  speak  of  Physical  Geography.  Lizarann  had  a  ques- 
tion to  ask: 

"Did  it  went  on  just  like  that  when  my  Daddy  went  viyages 
aboardship  ? " 

"  Did  it  go  on  just  like  that  ?  Yes,  dear !  It  went  on  just  like 
that.  More  so,  sometimes ! " 

"  Louderer  and  louderer  ?    And  then  it  blowed  a  gale  ? " 

"  And  then  it  blew  a  gale.  I  dare  say."  The  Mandarin  looked 
benevolently  round  at  her  patient,  and  added:  "We're  very 
nautical." 

Now  Lizarann  missed  the  last  syllable,  and  therefore  thought 
that  she  and  the  lady,  for  some  reason  unknown,  were  very 
naughty.  Of  course,  the  lady  knew  best;  and,  as  she  herself  was 
inculpated,  would  never  be  so  dishonourable  as  to  tell.  So  Lizar- 
ann asked  for  no  explanations.  But  she  wanted  to  know  about 
the  tides,  and  some  points  in  navigation.  Presently  an  incident 
supplied  a  text. 

"Why  did  the  lady  ran  away  from  the  water?" 

"  Because  she  didn't  want  wet  stockings."  Yes — that  was 
clear  enough.  But  why  did  the  water  run  after  the  lady  ? — Lizar- 
ann asked,  recasting  her  question.  "  Because  the  tide's  coming  in," 
said  her  informant. 

Explanations  followed — not  embarrassingly  deep  ones;  the  moon 
was  left  out  altogether.  The  water  would  come  right  up  to  where 
we  were  at  two  o'clock  because  it  was  spring-tide.  Then  it  would 
go  back  again  for  the  same  reason;  which  seemed  inconsistent  to 
Lizarann,  who  was  no  politician.  But  she  was  not  really  keen 
about  the  physical  questions  involved.  As  soon  as  courtesy  per- 
mitted, she  reintroduced  her  personal  interest. 

"  When  my  Daddy  was  serving  aboardship  " — it  was  funny  to 
hear  the  child  repeat  her  father's  words,  said  the  Mandarin  after — 
"  did  he  seed  the  water  go  in  and  out,  like  we  do  ? " 

"If  he  was  on  the  coast." 

"  Are  we  on  the  scoast  ? " 

"We  are  at  Chalk  Cliff,  and  Chalk  Cliffs  on  the  coast." 
Lizarann  didn't  see  why  we  should  wash  our  hands  of  the  coast, 
and  throw  the  whole  responsibility  on  Chalk  Cliff.  But  she  ac- 
cepted this  too ;  only,  further  definition  would  be  welcome. 

"Those  are  ships?"  she  half  asked,  half  affirmed,  looking  out 
to  sea. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  577 

"  Those  are  ships.     Some  big,  some  little." 

"  Are  they  on  the  scoast  ? " 

"  Oh  dear  no ! — miles  away."  Then  Lizarann  was  beginning, 
languidly,  a  demonstration  that  her  Daddy,  when  voyaging  on 
board  ship,  could  not  also  be  on  the  coast  and  observe  the  tides, 
when  the  Mandarin — good,  well-intentioned  woman  that  she  was — 
must  needs  feel  her  patient's  pulse,  and  say  she  mustn't  talk  too 
much  and  make  herself  cough,  and  advised  her  to  lie  quiet,  and 
even  go  to  sleep.  Lizarann  repudiated  sleep,  as  she  wanted  to 
watch  the  life  around,  and  was  only  wishing  she  hadn't  got  so 
tired  with  that  railway-journey  yesterday.  It  would  have  been  so 
nice  to  catch  prawns  and  make  sand-castles,  like  the  Children.  But 
she  acquiesced  in  inaction,  to  her  own  surprise;  and  to  her  still 
greater  surprise  waked  suddenly,  shortly  after,  from  a  dream  of 
Bridgetticks  and  her  small  self  building  sand-castles  in  the  gutter 
in  Tallack  Street,  and  terribly  in  dread  of  the  Boys. 

Still,  through  it  all,  the  little  patient  saw  nothing  strange  in  her 
own  readiness  to  submit  to  being  nursed.  She  was  first  and  fore- 
most among  the  disbelievers  in  the  seriousness  of  her  malady,  and 
ascribed  all  the  solicitude  that  was  being  shown  about  her  to  an 
epidemic  of  public  benevolence,  more  or  less  due  to  misapprehen- 
sions set  on  foot  by  Dr.  Spiderophel's  imperfect  auscultations.  It 
was  a  whim  he  had  inoculated  a  kind-hearted  world  with;  and  she 
felt,  for  some  reason  she  could  not  analyze,  that  it  was  easiest  to 
indulge  it. 

So  when  her  eyes  opened  again  on  the  glorious  vision  of  the 
great  wide  sea  her  Daddy  had  told  her  of  so  many  a  time,  as  she 
nestled  to  his  heart  by  that  dear  bygone  fireside  in  the  London 
slum,  with  Uncle  Bob  ending  the  day  in  a  drunken  drowse,  and 
Aunt  Stingy  adding  a  chapter  to  her  long  chronicle  of  her 
world's  depravity  and  her  own  merits,  she  made  no  effort  towards 
movement — just  lay  still  unexplained,  and  watched  the  flood  com- 
ing nearer,  ever  nearer,  to  a  grand  sand-castle  just  below;  and 
listened  to  the  music  of  its  ripples,  and  wondered  at  the  builders' 
exultation  over  the  coming  cataclysm,  the  wreck  of  their  morning's 
work.  It  seemed  illogical,  that  shout  of  joy  when  a  larger  wavelet 
than  its  fellows  glanced  ahead  of  them,  and  catching  sight  of  the 
majestic  structure,  rushed  emulously  on  to  be  the  first  to  under- 
mine it.  But  not  illogical  neither,  to  be  proud  of  the  gallant 
stand  that  castle  made  against  the  seas;  a  miniature  Atlantis  dy- 
ing game,  protesting  to  the  Idst!  Nor  when  the  final  effort  of  the 
British  Channel  made  of  it  mere  oblivion — an  evanescence  in  sand 
and  foam  and  floating  weed — to  mingle  a  general  concession 


578  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

towards  going  home  to  dinner,  now,  with  resolutions  to  come  at 
sunrise,  or  thereabouts,  and  build  a  bigger  one  still  to-morrow. 

The  Mandarin  lady  was  conversing  with  a  family  when  Lizarann 
opened  her  eyes,  and  all  were  looking  towards  the  patient.  But  if 
what  they  said  was  overheard  by  her,  it  was  not  understood;  it 
was  to  the  child  only  a  part  of  the  general  goodwill  the  World 
seemed  bent  on  showing  towards  herself. 

"  Very  quick  sometimes,"  said  the  lady,  who  couldn't  have  been 
really  Chinese,  or  the  family  wouldn't  have  called  her  Miss  Jane. 
Then  the  family's  mamma,  whose  beauty  seized  on  Lizarann  so, 
almost,  as  to  take  her  attention  off  the  sand-castle,  said,  "  Poor, 
darling  little  thing !  How  sad !  "  And  then  the  castle  was  over- 
whelmed, turrets,  battlements,  and  flag;  and  if  Lizarann  had  heard 
that  much,  she  certainly  heard  no  more,  and  attached  little  mean- 
ing to  that. 

Besides,  a  very  succulent  little  boy,  who  could  not  speak  for  him- 
self yet,  owing  to  his  youth,  who  had  been  interpreted  as  anxious 
to  show  his  prawn  to  the  little  girl,  was  being  urged  by  his  nurse 
to  that  course,  he  having  to  all  seeming  suddenly  wavered,  and 
resolved  to  conceal  the  prawn — who  was  lukewarm  and  unhappy 
from  being  held  too  tight — in  a  commodious  crease  under  his  chin. 
Lizarann's  attention  was  at  the  moment  divided  between  solicitude 
for  the  prawn's  welfare  and  an  affection  for  this  little  boy  she 
could  not  conceal,  in  spite  of  his  callous  indifference  to  the  lifelong 
habits  of  his  prisoner. 

And  then  the  beach  and  its  glories  had  passed  away,  and  Lizar- 
ann was  aware  that  she  had  been  carried  indoors  from  a  donkey- 
carriage  she  had  accompanied  other  patients  home  in,  and  was 
lying  down  indisposed  for  food  she  recognized  as  nice;  but  trying 
to  eat  it  too,  to  oblige  Miss  Jane,  the  Mandarin,  who  seemed  to  have 
taken  a  great  fancy  to  her.  Only  she  couldn't  the  least  account 
for  why  it  should  be  such  an  effort  to  eat  her  dinner;  and  ended 
by  putting  it  down  to  the  absence  of  her  Daddy,  and  wanting 
sorely  to  be  back  with  him  at  Mrs.  Fox's;  or — strangt  preference! 
— bringing  him  home  from  Bladen  Street  an  intact  Daddy  as  of 
old,  albeit  eyeless  by  hypothesis,  and  all  the  dreadful  accident  a 
dream. 

There  were  reservations,  though,  to  the  way  she  let  her  heart  go 
back  to  those  sweet  stethoscopeless  days.  To  make  none  would 
have  been  disloyal  to  Teacher  and  to  Mr.  Yorick — oh  yes ! — and  to 
Phoebe  and  Joan,  and  Mrs.  Fox,  and  even  to  Aunt  Bessy,  though 
the  latter  was  not  a  really  well-informed  person,  and  Dr.  Spider- 
ophel,  who  was  more  sinned  against  than  sinning,  the  victim  of  a 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  579 

fraudulent  black  pipe!  If  she  were  still  the  little  pilot  of  her 
eyeless  Daddy  through  the  crowded  streets,  what  would  she  now 
be  to  Teacher,  who  had  got  to  be  a  sort  of  mother  to  her? — what 
but  one  of  a  swarm  of  little  girls  in  time,  or  otherwise,  for 
religious  instruction  at  a  quarter-to-nine,  and  breaking  loose  in 
possession  of  two  hours'  more  secular  information  at  twelve,  ex- 
cept Saturday?  What  but  an  unknown  unit  of  a  crowded  slum 
to  Mr.  Yorick  ?  Just  think ! — if  there  were  no  Mr.  Yorick  .  .  . ! 

"  I  think  we  may  put  it  down  to  the  fatigue  of  the  journey 
yesterday.  You'll  back  me  up  in  that,  doctor  ?  " 

But  the  head  physician  of  the  Convalescent  Home,  who  answered 
Miss  Jane,  the  Mandarin,  wasn't  a  firmly  outlined  character.  "I 
see  no  objection  to  that,"  he  answered.  "  But  there's  very  strong 
feebleness — very  strong  feebleness!  Shouldn't  say  too  much  about 
anything." 

"  I  see,"  said  Miss  Jane.  And  that  was  all  she  said.  But  Lizar- 
ann,  who  heard  more  than  she  was  supposed  to  hear,  this  time, 
formed  a  very  low  opinion  of  her  new  medical  adviser.  As  if  she 
had  anything  the  matter  with  her!  She  had  a  better  opinion  of 
Miss  Jane;  and  when  that  lady  asked  her,  referring  to  a  letter 
she  wrote  that  afternoon  to  Adeline  Fossett — who  was  a  friend  of 
hers,  it  seemed — what  message  she  was  to  give  on  Lizarann's  be- 
half, the  patient  had  no  misgiving  about  entrusting  a  full  cargo 
of  loves  and  kisses  for  delivery  to  her. 

As  she  lay  and  listened  in  a  half -dream  in  the  sunny  room,  with 
the  air  coming  in  from  the  sea,  to  its  distant  murmur  mixing 
with  the  drone  of  those  untiring  flies  on  the  ceiling,  and  the 
scratching  of  Miss  Jane's  pen  near  at  hand,  the  recent  arrival 
at  the  Home  had  no  suspicion  how  serious  a  report  of  her  case  that 
lady  was  framing.  She  lay  and  wondered  when  that  long  letter 
would  come  to  an  end,  and  looked  forward  to  the  sweet  ex- 
perience of  rejoining  her  Daddy,  and  talking  more  to  him  about 
the  sea  he  had  known  so  well  in  the  days  when  there  was  no 
Lizarann.  She  knew  it  now  too;  and  was  going  to  know  it  better 
still  to-morrow. 

"We  shall  have  to  make  up  our  minds,  Bess,"  said  Athelstan 
Taylor  two  or  three  days  later  to  his  sister-in-law,  at  Royd. 

"To  .    .    .  ? "  said  Miss  Caldecott,  in  brief  interrogation. 

"  We  shall  have  to  make  up  our  minds  what  to  say  to  Jim  Coup- 
land.  You  see  what  Addie  thinks  ?  " 

Aunt  Bessy  saw,  she  said.  But  after  reflection  hit  upon  an 
escape  from  painful  inferences.  Didn't  Addie  sometimes  look  on 


580  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  worst  side  of  things  ?  "  Perhaps  she  does,"  said  the  Rector, 
and  felt  more  cheerful  over  it.  Then  he  got  sundry  letters  from 
his  pocket,  and  re-read  them.  His  little  access  of  cheerfulness 
seemed  chilled  by  the  reading,  for  when  he  had  ended  he  shook 
his  head,  in  his  own  confidence,  and  sighed  as  he  refolded  the  let- 
ters. 

"  Let  me  look  at  them  again,"  said  Miss  Caldecott.  Both  knew 
the  contents  of  these  letters  perfectly,  and  each  knew  the  other 
knew  them.  But  it  looked  like  weighing  them  in  a  more  accurate 
pair  of  scales  than  the  last,  every  time  of  reading. 

"  Make  anything  of  them  ? "  the  Rector  asked,  but  got  no  an- 
swer. The  letters  were  being  read  slowly.  Justice  was  being  done 
to  the  question. 

But  the  truth  was  Aunty  Bessy  was  suppressing  her  inspira- 
tions because  she  couldn't  trust  her  voice  with  them.  She  was  a 
dry  and  correct  lady,  but  affectionate  for  all  that;  and  it  was  her 
affection  for  Lizarann  that  had  got  in  her  throat,  and  would  have 
to  subside  before  she  could  screw  herself  up  to  pooh-poohing  the  let- 
ter Miss  Jane  the  Chinese  had  written  to  Adeline  Fossett,  with  such 
a  bad  account  of  her  patient.  This  was  the  letter  we  left  Lizarann 
listening  to,  as  she  lay  looking  forward  to  the  sea,  next  day. 

Presently  the  answer  came,  following  on  a  short  cough  or  two 
connected  with  the  throat-symptom : — "  I  do  think  people  of  that 
sort  are  often  very  inconsiderate.  Don't  you  ? " 

"Which  sort?" 

"  People  who  are  constantly  in  contact  with  this  kind  of  thing — 
matrons  of  hospitals — nurses — all  that  sort!  However,  you  know 
best." 

"  Miss  Fanshawe's  a  very  old  friend  of  Addie's,  and  tells  her  the 
truth  perhaps  more  freely  because  of  her  own  experience — knows 
about  Gus,  and  remembers  Cecilia."  The  name  of  the  Chinese, 
then,  was  Fanshawe.  Cecilia  was  the  sister  that  died. 

"  Perhaps,"  said  Miss  Caldecott.     "  Isn't  the  post  very  late  ? " 

The  post  was  audible  without,  with  a  powerful  provincial  accent. 
After  debate — which  accounted  for  the  post's  lateness — its  boots 
departed  down  the  garden  gravel-path,  and  Rachel  brought  in  the 
letters,  and  said,  "  Shall  I  shut  up,  miss  ? "  as  Pandora's  box  might 
have  said,  if  willing  to  oblige. 

The  Rector  was  keen  on  one  letter;  the  others  might  wait.  Miss 
Caldecott  said,  "  Addie,  I  see,"  and  waited  also  to  read  her  own  let- 
ters. Then  the  usual  course  was  followed  in  such  cases.  The 
Rector  read,  and  said,  "All  right!  Directly,"  and,  "Just  half-a- 
second ! "  in  response  to,  "  Well  ? "  which  came  at  intervals,  like 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  581 

minute-guns  with  notes  of  interrogation  after  them.  Then  ex- 
pansive relief  followed  in  his  voice.  "  Oh  yes ! — that's  very  satis- 
factory. Now  I  shall  be  able  to  tell  Jim."  Then  he  surrendered 
one  letter  and  read  the  other,  saying  as  he  neared  the  end,  "Ah 
well! — it's  substantially  the  same.  I'm  so  glad  we  got  them  to- 
night." 

"  I  thought  it  was  that,"  said  Miss  Caldecott.  "  Naturally,  peo- 
ple who  see  so  many  cases  of  this  sort  get  frightened  at  every  little 
thing."  She  read  the  letter  aloud,  making  selections :  "  '  Was  up  and 
walked  about  on  the  beach  this  morning/  You  see,  Athel  ?  '  Sea 
air  very  often  has  that  effect  at  first ' — oh,  that's  what  Addie  her- 
self says — '  expect  the  Vim  ^Ethericum  will  do  wonders.'  Some  new 
medicine,  I  suppose.  What  does  Miss  Fanshawe's  own  letter  say  ? " 

"  Only  what  Addie  reports.    But  I  don't  quite  like  ..." 

"What?" 

"  You'll  see  at  the  end  there.  '  Must  be  thankful  she  suffers  so 
little'?" 

"  Oh,  Athel !    Now  you  are  begging  and  borrowing  troubles." 

"  Well — I  didn't  like  the  wording  of  it.  However,  I  think  I  shall 
be  justified  in  not  reading  that  bit  to  her  father.  Poor  Jim ! " 

This  was  in  July,  a  fortnight  or  thereabouts  before  Challis  paid 
his  visit  to  the  Rectory.  It  is  a  good  sample  of  the  sort  of  thing 
that  had  gone  on  in  the  interim.  The  sort  of  thing  only  very 
young  or  very  lucky  folk  are  unfamiliar  with — the  bulletin- 
foundry's  intense  anxiety  to  make  the  most  of  every  little  scrap 
of  nourishment  for  Hope,  on  the  one  hand;  on  the  other,  the 
amazing  capacity  of  Hope  for  growing  quite  bloated  on  starvation 
diet. 

All  the  news  that  reached  Jim  about  his  dying  child — the  words 
give  the  truth,  brutally;  but  what  does  the  story  gain  by  flinching 
from  them? — was  what  a  succession  of  kind  hearts  had  tried  to 
make  the  best  of,  each  without  a  particle  of  conscious  wish  to 
falsify  or  suppress.  What  wonder  that  when  Challis  saw  him  at 
the  well  that  day,  Jim  was  using  the  mere  letter  of  the  daily 
tidings  he  received  to  silence  the  misgivings  that  were  whispering 
to  his  heart?  But  they  were  there  for  all  that,  making  deadly  fore- 
casts in  his  mind  of  a  life  he  would  have  to  live,  he  knew  not  how 
— a  life  that  was  darkness  now,  but  still  had  a  light  shining  in  that 
darkness  that  it  heeded — a  light  that  helped  oblivion  of  the 
cruel  past.  What  would  be  left  for  him  if  that  solace  were  with- 
drawn? 

He  had  always  an  undercurrent  of  suspicion  that  the  evil  was 


582  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

being  made  the  best  of,  for  his  sake.  And  in  the  greatness  of  his 
heart — for  Jim  had  a  great  heart — he  felt  pity  for  those  who  had  to 
be  the  bearers  of  ill  news;  none  of  them  cut  out  for  indifference 
to  the  suffering  of  its  hearers.  If  he  lost  his  little  lass,  the  Master 
— so  he  still  called  Athelstan  Taylor — would  have  to  come  and  tell 
him;  and  Jim  would  have  been  glad  he  should  be  spared  the  pain, 
after  so  much  kindness  to  himself  and  the  lassie.  Only,  that  pain 
would  not  be  outside  the  range  of  pity;  a  practicable  human  pain 
that  could  be  thought  of  and  dealt  with — not  a  pain  like  his  own 
if  the  lassie  followed  her  mother.  Or  rather,  that  last  pain  would 
be  no  pain  at  all;  merely  the  dumb  extinction  of  a  soul.  Or  would 
it  be  like  the  anaesthetic  that  multiplies  suffering  tenfold,  and 
leaves  its  victim  inexpressive — just  mere  adamant?  So  much  the 
better!  Death  would  come  the  sooner. 

But  all  the  information  Jim  received  was  softened  down,  and 
he  knew  it.  A  murmur  he  could  not  have  found  voice  to  speak 
aloud  was  always  in  the  inmost  chambers  of  his  mind,  prompting 
doubt  of  the  reports  that  reached  him.  But  he  never  showed  a  sign 
of  his  growing  consciousness  of  the  gathering  cloud,  unless  it  were 
that  he  listened  to  his  news,  as  he  got  it,  more  and  more  in  silence. 

"  How  would  he  be  the  better  if  we  did  send  him  ? "  said  Athel- 
stan Taylor  to  his  sister-in-law,  less  than  three  weeks  later.  "  He 
might  just  arrive  to  find  her  dying.  How  would  he  know  his  little 
lass?  Not  'by  the  feel'  now!  Addie  says  she's  gone  to  a  mere 
shadow.  Not  by  the  voice.  ..."  His  own  broke,  and  he 
stopped.  Aunt  Bessy  sobbed  in  a  window-recess,  and  thought  she 
dried  her  tears  unnoticed. 

They  had  been  walking  to  and  fro  and  about  the  room  in  restless 
perturbation,  she  interlacing  the  uneasy  fingers  of  hands  that 
wandered  to  her  brows  when  free,  then  interlaced  again;  he  some- 
what firmer,  but  with  lips  not  quite  within  control.  He  held  the 
yellow  paper  of  a  telegram  to  hand  an  hour  since,  and  kept  re-read- 
ing the  twenty-odd  words  that  made  it  up,  failing  always  to  read 
any  new  and  better  meaning  into  the  heart  of  their  brevity.  It 
had  come  enclosed  in  a  letter  from  Adeline  Fossett,  who  had  the 
day  previously  been  wired  for  suddenly  by  Miss  Jane,  the  Chinese 
lady  at  Chalk  Cliff.  A  short  and  grisly  summons  she  knew  the 
meaning  of  at  once,  following  as  it  did  on  a  forewarning  letter 
thirty-six  hours  ago — a  letter  that  teemed  with  excruciating  assur- 
ance that  there  was  no  "  immediate  danger,"  but  that  when  there 
was  the  writer  would  send  a  telegram  at  once.  She  had  kept  her 
word. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  583 

That  letter,  forwarded  promptly  on  to  the  Rectory,  had  made 
heart-sick  discussion  between  Athelstan  Taylor  and  Aunt  Bessy 
since  its  arrival  by  this  morning's  post.  What  ought  to  be  said? — 
what  could  be  said  to  the  father  of  the  dying  child,  who  was  now 
looking  forward  to  her  near  return  home,  building  still  whatever 
structures  of  hope  the  hesitating,  irresolute  tidings  of  a  month 
past  had  left  a  weak  foundation  for  ?  Who  was  to  say  to  Jim  that 
the  time  had  come  to  give  up  that  sweet  vision  he  to  this  hour  was 
trying  hard  to  cherish,  of  a  miraculous  late  summer  and  his  little 
lass  again,  beside  him  at  the  well-head,  in  the  sunshine  ?  Who  was 
to  shatter  the  thin  crust  of  artificial  hopes  that  still  kept  under 
the  fires  of  his  misgivings,  and  leave  them  free  to  break  loose 
through  the  crater  of  a  volcano  of  despair? 

"  How  would  he  he  the  better  ? "  the  Rector  asked  again  pres- 
ently. "  And  if  I  say  to  him  now,  '  Lizarann  is  dying,  but  you 
cannot  be  beside  her  when  she  dies ' — why — will  not  that  be  quite 
the  worst  thing  of  all  ?  I  can  only  judge  by  imagining  myself  in 
his  position.  Poor  Jim !  " 

"  You  must  do  as  you  think  best,  Athel  dear,"  said  Aunt  Bessy. 
She  was  not  a  tower  of  strength  in  a  crisis,  this  good  lady;  but 
she  wouldn't  hinder,  though  she  couldn't  help.  Only,  there  are 
ways  and  ways  of  not  hindering.  Her  brother-in-law  would  have 
liked  another  sample,  this  time  one  with  less  flavour  of  protest. 

"  Just  look  at  it  this  way,  Bessy,"  said  he.  "  If  I  could  say  to 
Jim,  '  The  doctors  are  sending  bad  accounts  of  the  little  one,  and 
you  must  come  with  me  straight  away  to  see  how  things  are  go- 
ing'— well! — that  would  be  quite  another  thing.  But  to  prepare 
him  for  bad  news,  and  the  rest  of  it,  and  then  leave  him  alone  in 
the  cottage  .  .  . !  " 

"He  will  be  alone  in  the  cottage.  I  had  forgotten  that.  But 
it  won't  be  so  soon  .  .  .  surely  .  .  .  ? "  The  hushed  voice 
shows  what  is  referred  to — the  "  arch-fear  in  a  terrible  form  "  on 
whose  face  Europe  at  least  cannot  bear  to  look.  How  rarely  does 
even  the  bravest  among  us  speak  of  the  grim  terror  by  name, 
with  reference  to  a  particular  case!  What  does  it  matter?  Ways 
of  saying  the  same  thing  are  provided  by  conventions  that  seem 
quite  alive  to  the  whereabouts  of  the  sting  of  Death,  of  the  vic- 
tory of  the  Grave.  If  the  language  of  the  daily  press  is  any  evi- 
dence on  the  subject,  the  Immortalism  of  the  Creeds  is  only 
skin-deep.  Disorders  terminate  fatally;  folk  breathe  their  last; 
they  share  the  common  lot;  they  succumb;  none  is  so  old  and 
weary  with  the  storms  of  Fate  that  the  vernacular  forecast  of  his 
release  will  not  "  anticipate  the  worst."  But  nobody  dies,  except 


584  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

paupers,  in  contemporary  speech.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  a  dis- 
order "  terminating  fatally  "  in  a  workhouse  ?  Or  perhaps  insolv- 
ents die — was  one  ever  known  to  succumb? 

Aunt  Bessy  was  flinching  before  the  inexorable,  and  pleading  for 
useless  respite.  "  I  know  what  it  means,"  said  the  Hector,  "  when 
telegrams  like  this  begin.  The  old  story ! "  He  put  the  point 
aside  with  a  sigh.  "Ah  well! — anyhow,  Jim  may  be  alone  for 
some  days.  It  isn't  even  as  if  I  could  be  with  him  now  and  again. 
I  must  go  to  this  Memorial  business  at  Chipping  Chester,  and  I 
can't  get  off  stopping  to  marry  Audrey:  she  would  never  forgive 
me."  He  enumerated  other  engagements — things  that  would  keep 
him  absent  a  week' — even  longer.  They  were  matters  quite  outside 
the  story. 

"When  do  you  suppose  old  Margy  will  be  back?" 
"How  can  I  tell?    When  do  you  suppose  her  niece's  baby  in- 
tends to  be  born  ? " 


CHAPTER  XLVn 

OF  THE  APPROACH  OF  LIZARANN's  RETURN,  AND  HOW  JIM'S  HOPES  WERE 
FED  BY  OLD  DAVID.  HOW  JIM  DID  NOT  CURSE  A  MOTOR-CAR.  HOW 
LIZARANN  DIED  OF  TUBERCULOSIS 

So  it  had  come  about  that  for  weeks  past  news  of  Lizarann, 
that  none  could  doubt  the  meaning  of,  came  to  the  Rectory,  and 
that  all  of  it  that  passed  on  to  her  Daddy  reached  him  corrected 
out  of  all  knowledge — the  sting  withdrawn. 

Had  he  been  able  to  read  the  letters  that  contained  it  himself, 
this  would  not  have  been  possible.  Some  may  have  a  stone 
ready  to  cast  at  Athelstan  Taylor  for  this.  The  story  has  none.  It 
was  a  question  with  the  Rector  of  allowing  poor  Jim  a  few  more 
days  of  false  hope  in  order  that  he  himself  might  be  beside  him 
in  the  first  of  his  despair.  His  own  easiest  course,  far  and  away, 
would  have  been  to  read  Adeline  Fossett's  last  letter  to  the  poor  fel- 
low aloud,  say,  "  God's  will  be  done ! "  and  so  forth,  and  get  away 
to  Chipping  Chester.  But  he  had  it  in  his  mind  to  go  to  Jim 
when  the  use  of  the  knife  became  inevitable,  and  remain  with  him, 
if  Mrs.  Fox  were  still  away,  at  least  until  the  day  of  her  return. 
He  shrank  from  leaving  him  alone  in  the  cottage,  a  tortured  soul 
in  a  sunless  universe,  within  reach  of  a  razor. 

Had  he  conceived  for  one  moment  what  the  speed  of  events 
would  be,  his  course  might  have  been  different.  But  the  letters 
that  he  could  not  read  aloud  to  Jim  were  misleading  on  one  point. 
The  writer  caught  constantly  at  the  only  easement  words  could 
be  found  for,  that  the  actual  hour  or  day,  or  even  week,  of  Death 
could  not  be  forecast.  The  dear  little  thing  was  not  actually 
dying;  she  might  live  for  weeks,  even  months.  But  the  doctor 
here — said  Miss  Jane  Fanshawe — who  really  had  had  immense  ex- 
perience, thought  the  case  could  only  end  one  way.  Still,  the 
temperature  was  half  a  degree  lower  to-day,  and  we  thought  the 
air  was  beginning  to  tell.  We  should  be  able  to  see  better  when 
she  was  got  back  home,  with  her  old  surroundings.  She  fretted  a 
good  deal  about  her  Daddy.  That  was  the  general  tone  of  the 
penultimate  letter.  Then  came  the  one  Miss  Fossett  enclosed  on 
with  the  telegram  which  followed  it.  It  came  too  late  for  the 
Rector  to  modify  his  plan  of  operations. 

585 


586  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

So  Jim  lived  on  by  himself,  and  thought  of  his  little  lass,  count- 
ing the  days  to  her  return.  He  spoke  with  no  one,  water- 
customers  apart,  except  a  neighbour  who  had  undertaken  to  see 
to  his  needs  in  Mrs.  Fox's  absence.  His  dog  was  under  the  im- 
pression that  it  was  he  that  was  doing  this,  and  there  can  be  no 
doubt  that  he  actually  did  conduct  his  master  to  and  from  the 
well.  But  nobody,  except  his  canine  self,  believed  that  he  had  any 
share  in  cooking  tie  dinner  or  making  the  beds. 

Each  long  day  that  went  by  was  a  day  nearer  to  the  blind 
man's  hearing  of  his  child's  voice.  It  would  come,  and  would  be 
hers  once  more — many  times  more  than  once.  His  reason  might 
whisper  to  him  of  one  end,  and  one  alone,  in  some  vague  terrible 
future,  to  this  insidious  plague  that  had  stolen  on  him  like  a  thief 
in  the  night,  to  rob  him  of  his  happiness — the  one  jewel  his  dark- 
ness and  his  crippled  limbs  had  left  him.  But  that  the  hour  was 
at  hand,  and  the  word  spoken,  that  the  light  in  his  heart  should 
be  utterly  quenched,  and  leave  his  soul  to  a  darkness  blacker  than 
the  void  his  eyesight  had  become — this  was  an  idea  it  was  not  in 
him  to  receive,  a  thought  that  nature  rose  against. 

No! — her  return  would  be  very  soon  now,  and  he  knew  how  it 
would  come.  He  had  nothing  to  guide  him  to  the  day  or  the  hour 
beyond  his  knowledge  of  the  term  first  fixed — six  weeks  from  the 
day  of  her  departure.  But  he  knew  what  would  be  his  first  hear- 
ing of  it.  She  would  call  out  to  him — he  was  sure  of  that — the 
signal  he  had  taught  her  to  greet  him  with,  in  the  old  days  of 
Bladen  Street;  the  word  he  had  listened  for  so  many  a  time  as  he 
felt  his  way,  touching  with  his  stick  the  long  blank  wall  he  had 
to  pass  before  he  could  feel  her  little  hand  in  his.  He  dreamed 
and  dwelt  upon  the  moment  when  he  should  hear  that  call  again, 
"Pi-lot!" 

The  villagers  coming  to  the  well  for  water  were  a  great  solace 
to  him;  a  mine  of  robust  hopefulness  in  which  the  choke-damp  of 
misgiving  was  unknown.  Often  when  Jim  was  downhearted  about 
the  little  lass — had  got  a  hump  about  her,  as  he  phrased  it — some 
village  matron's  voice  would  come  to  him  like  a  breath  of  fresh  air. 
"  Yow'ull  be  having  yower  little  maid  back  again  vairy  soon  now, 
Master  Coupland ! "  And  the  sympathetic  confidence  bred  in 
Jim's  own  voice  would  help  him  to  a  conviction  that  it  was  well- 
grounded,  as  he  answered,  "Aye,  mistress,  sure!  But  a  very 
little  time  to  run  now ! "  Even  when  the  slight  insecurity  im- 
plied in  the  addendum,  "  Please  God !  " — making  the  little  lass'a 
return  conditional  on  anything — weakened  the  robust  language  of 
unqualified  Hope,  Jim  received  it  as  a  mere  concession  to  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  587 

prejudices  of  Society.     Besides,  he  and  his  Maker  were  on  better 
terms  now,  since  his  initiation  into  church-music. 

No  note  of  alarm  had  reached  the  villagers;  in  fact,  the  Rector 
and  his  sister-in-law  kept  their  information  to  themselves.  Even 
Phoebe  and  Joan,  when  they  paid  Jim  visits  of  consolation — every 
other  day  or  thereabouts — were  a  reassuring  element;  though  so 
near  sources  of  better,  or  worse,  information.  They — poor  little 
souls! — knew  nothing  of  death  close  at  hand,  though  alive  to 
funerals,  somewhat  as  a  counsel's  children  might  be  alive  to  law- 
suits. 

It  was  near  the  close  of  a  cloudless  day  in  the  fourth  week  of 
that  August  that  Jim,  undisturbed  by  applicants  for  water,  was 
enjoying  his  last  pipe  before  starting  for  home.  He  was  not 
alone.  One  of  the  very  old  men  one  knows  so  well  in  every  village 
was  with  him;  a  survival  of  the  past  who  will  tell  you  tales  of 
your  grandfathers,  and  end  them  up  with  some  memory  of  a 
grandchild  of  his  own,  then  living.  Death  is  keeping  them  in 
mind,  be  sure ! — will  not  forget  them  in  the  end,  even  though  they 
may  tax  his  recollection  for  another  decade.  This  one  could  re- 
member his  childhood  better  than  the  events  of  yesterday,  and 
though  he  could  tell  but  little  of  it,  was  not  quite  without  a  rec- 
ord of  Waterloo.  For  he  could  recall  how  his  father  held  him 
up,  a  child  of  five,  to  see  the  blaze  on  Crumwen  Beacon  yander, 
when  they  loighted  up  fires  all  round  about  for  the  news  that 
had  come  of  the  great  battle  across  the  water.  But  as  for  Nelson 
and  Trafalgar,  inquired  about  keenly  by  Jim,  as  pages  from  the 
same  book,  he  could  say  nothing  of  them;  they  were  afower  his 
time.  But  he  minded  when  they  painted  up  the  sign  of  the  Lord 
Nelson  on  the  roo-ad  to  th'  Castle,  with  an  empty  sleeve  to.  his 
cwo-at;  and  the  painter  of  un  didn't  know  his  trade,  and  put 
stoof  with  th'  payunt  to  ma'ak  it  show  up  gay,  and  look  at  un 
now! 

"It's  a  tidy  bit  o'  time  too,  Master  David,"  said  Jim.  "Many 
a  year  afore  ever  I  was  heard  tell  of." 

"  Aye  well — that's  so !  But  you'll  be  quite  a  yoong  ma'an, 
coo-unting  by  years.  Why,  I  lay  you'll  be  yoonger  by  many  a 
year  than  Peter  Fox's  widow — she  that's  gone  to  her  sister  in 
Loon'un." 

"My  old  mother  at  the  cottage?  Ah,  she'll  be  my  age  twice 
told,  and  a  spell  thrown  in." 

"Aye — aye!  She's  getting  on,  forward,  now  you  ne'am  it 
But  I  mind  her  when  she  first  came  to  these  parts — just  a  yoong 


588  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

•wench,  not  long  wed — more  by  token  my  power  missus  lay  dying 
at  the  time.  .  .  .  Noa ! — I'd  been  marrud  woonce  af ower  then 
— marrud  to  Sarah  Tracey — you  may  ree-ad  her  ne'am  on  the 
sto'an  in  the  graveyard.  But  for  Peter  Fox's  widow,  she  was  a 
coomly  yoong  wench,  shooerly !  " 

He  wandered  among  domestic  events,  until  the  dog,  feeling  he 
was  being  taken  too  little  notice  of,  remonstrated.  The  substance 
of  his  communication,  interpreted  by  Jim,  was  that  it  was  time  to 
be  getting  back  home.  On  the  road,  his  opinion  was  they  were 
going  too  slow,  and  he  endeavoured  to  drag  his  master  at  a  trot. 
Old  David  commented  on  the  restlessness  of  youth. 

"  But  you  won't  be  needing  th'  yoong  poop  soon,  Master  Coup- 
land.  That  little  maid  of  yowern  she'll  be  coomin'  ba-ack,  I  lay, 
none  so  many  days  ahead." 

Here  was  a  chance  for  Jim  to  reassure  himself. 

"  For  all  I  could  say,"  said  he,  "  the  lassie  may  be  up  at  the 
Rectory  now.  She'd  come  with  her  lady,  as  I  make  it  out;  just 
for  the  first  go  off,  seeing  the  old  mother's  not  handy  for  to  nurse 
her  up.  Not  that  there'd  be  the  need  for  it,  to  my  judgment. 
These  here  doctor's  stories  ..." 

The  old  man  interrupted  him,  stopping  in  the  road  to  speak, 
with  an  uplifted  impressive  finger.  "Do'ant  ye  hearken  to  none 
o'  they,  Master  Coupland.  They  be  a  main  too  clever,  that  they  be ! 
Why,  I'm  not  the  only  ma'an  with  a  tale  to  tell  about  they  doc- 
tors?" 

"What  might  your  tale  be,  Master  David?" 

"My  tale?  Now  I  only  say  this  to  ye,  Master  Coupland.  Just 
ye  look  at  me.  .  .  .  Aye — be  sure! — I  should  ha'  said,  feel  hold 
of  my  arm.  .  .  .  There  now! — where  do  ye  find  th'  hospital 
pa'atient  in  that  ?  Towerned  o'  ninety -nine  year,  last  Whitsuntide ! 
What'll  your  doctors  ma'ak  of  that?" 

"Won't  they  give  you  a  clean  bill,  Master  David?" 

"  Couldn't  roightly  say,  Master  Coupland,  without  consooltin'  of 
'em.  And  I  can  tell  ye  this  much,  they'll  have  to  make  shift  with- 
out me;  you  may  tell  'em  so!  Now,  you  hearken  to  me,  not  to 
they."  The  voice  of  the  old  boy,  so  nearly  a  centenarian,  rose 
quite  to  vigour  as  he  worked  up  his  indignation  against  leechcraft. 
u  That  little  maid  of  yowern,  she  has  a  bit  o'  cough  o'  nights  ? " 

"  Aye,  aye  I — a  fair  sort  of  a  cough — comes  and  goes  by  the  sea- 
son." 

"Ah! — and  I  lay,  now  and  again  o'  nights,  she'll  sweat  like  to 
sop  a  flannel  shirt  through,  like  a  spoonge?" 

"And  that's  true,  tool" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  589 

"  And  happen  she's  thinned  doon  a  bit  ? — happen  she 
hasn't  .  .  .  ?" 

"  To  the  touch  o'  my  hand,  belike !  But  I'm  an  onsartain  judge 
—and  that's  the  truth." 

"  Now  I'm  telling  ye  this."  The  old  man  stood  still  to  make 
his  tale  the  more  impressive,  his  thousand  wrinkles  and  his  few 
grey  hairs  all  fraught  with  emphasis  that  was  lost  on  his  hearer; 
though  the  sight  of  them  in  the  afterglow  might  have  held  a  passer- 
by, and  made  him  listen.  He  repeated :  "  I'm  tellin'  ye  this,  Mas- 
ter Coupland.  If  ye  could  have  handled  me  when  I  was  a  yoong 
lad  of  mebbe  fowerteen  year,  or  fifteen,  you  would  just  have  felt 
through  to  th'  boans.  And  the  cough,  night  and  mowerning — my 
word!  You  might  well  ha'  thowt  yower  little  maiden's  just  a  gay 
trifle.  .  .  .  What  said  th'  doctor  ? "  The  old  man  laughed  scorn- 
fully, if  toothlessly.  "  Said  to  my  moother  she  might  let  the 
oonderta'aker  measure  me  for  my  coffin.  And  she  was  that  simple 
she  took  his  word  for  it,  and  vairy  nigh  did  .  .  .  ah! — you  may 
be  laughin' — but  vairy  nigh  she  did!  And  there  was  I  the  while, 
just  turned  off  my  food  and  drink  for  a  spell !  Groo-wun  I  was, 
I  ta'ak  it.  And  to  hear  doctor  cha-atterin',  cha-atterin' !  Such  a 
maze  o'  wo'ords,  it  passes  thinkin'  where  he  could  have  gotten  so 
ma-any.  Ha — ha — ho !  "  And  the  old  man  resumed  his  walk 
with,  "  Eighty-fower  year  agone,  Master  Coupland,  and  me  here, 
hale  and  hearty,  to  tell  the  tale ! " 

And  no  doubt  a  good  deal  of  the  tale  was  true,  and  the  good-will 
of  its  narrator  past  all  question.  But  he  was  making  the  most 
of  it  for  the  sake  of  the  pleasure  it  gave  him  to  cheer  up  the  blind 
man's  loneliness,  without  thinking  quite  enough  of  his  responsibil- 
ity to  truth.  When  he  wished  Master  Coupland  sound  sleep  and 
pleasant  dreams  at  the  gate  of  the  little  cottage,  and  went  slowly 
on  to  his  own  home  in  the  village,  he  was  saying  good-bye  to  a 
man  only  too  ready  to  give  the  rein  to  the  horses  of  the  chariot 
of  Hope,  even  without  an  excuse.  And  here  he  had  one,  surely. 

So,  through  his  lonely  supper — for,  granting  it  cooked  and 
placed  on  the  table,  Jim  had  a  marvellous  faculty  of  shifting  for 
himself — he  was  building  a  sweet  castle  in  the  air  with  the  ma- 
terials so  good-naturedly  placed  at  his  disposal.  He  imagined  to 
himself  as  a  thing  to  be  to-morrow,  if  it  had  not  already  come  to 
pass  to-day,  a  journey  home  of  a  reinstated  Lizarann,  all  eagerness 
for  her  Daddy.  Not  an  exorbitantly  robust  little  lass — he  would 
not  be  unreasonable — but  one  perceptibly  better  than  the  one  that 
left  him  a  month  since;  whose  kisses  he  could  still  feel,  was  soon 
to  feel  again.  As  he  lighted  his  pipe  in  the  garden  with  a  vesuvian 


590  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

— for  he  never  lit  it  in  the  house  when  alone,  for  safety's  sake — 
and  sat  smoking  under  the  stars  in  the  clematis  arbour,  now  be- 
ginning to  lose  its  glory,  it  glowed  in  unison  with  the  fire  of  a 
stimulated  hope  the  old  man's  tale  had  kindled.  If  old  David  had 
been  worse  off  eighty-four  years  ago  than  Lizarann,  why  should  not 
the  child  have  many  a  long  year  of  life  before  her — aye! — even 
after  he,  Jim,  had  borne  the  last  of  his  troubles,  and  was  laid  be- 
side Dolly  in  the  grave  ?  Short  of  that,  why  should  not  he  at  least 
treasure  the  hope  of  the  month  to  come,  with  Lizarann  herself  be- 
side him  in  the  warmth  of  that  late  summer  the  gentleman  had  all 
but  guaranteed?  For  this  castle  in  Spain  owed  a  great  deal  of 
its  vividness  to  Challis's  obliging  meteorology.  He  had  vouched 
for  "  St.  Augustin's  Summer,"  and  it  sounded  well. 

Then  a  painful  thought  came  to  him.  It  had  fretted  him  before 
this,  at  intervals.  How  if  that  grave  where  Dolly  lay  could  not  be 
found?  What  did  he  know  about  it?  Little  enough!  Priscilla 
knew;  she  had  arranged  all  that — as  Jim,  for  all  his  good-nature, 
suspected — with  a  certain  ghoul-like  joy.  But  suppose,  when  he 
himself  came  to  an  end,  Lizarann  wished  to  place  as  much  as  was 
left  of  him  beside  her  mother,  where  was  the  Lizarann  of  that  day 
to  find  her  ?  Well ! — he  could  do  nothing  about  it  now.  He  would 
speak  to  the  master,  and  make  a  clear  chart,  for  the  lassie's  sake. 
No  question  came  in  here  of  how  he  might  be  the  survivor,  and 
have  to  place  her  in  her  mother's  grave.  Old  David's  tale  had  been, 
an  opiate  to  thoughts  like  that,  and  his  heart  rested  on  it. 

Oh  yes! — Lizarann  was  due,  to-morrow  or  next  day  at  furthest. 
She  would  tell  him  about  the  sea.  He  could  bear  to  hear  of  it 
from  her — his  lassie  who  had  seen  it — though  he  had  fought  shy 
of  actually  hearing  what  he  could  never  see  again  himself. 

He  was  so  happy  in  his  dwelling  on  her  near  return,  and  the 
glamour  he  had  clothed  it  with,  that  he  could  smoke  there  beneath 
the  starlight  he  could  not  see,  and  think  of  his  old  nights  on  ship- 
board without  a  pang.  Little  things  came  back  to  him,  long  for- 
gotten; one  particularly,  slight  enough  in  itself,  but  so  unlike  Tal- 
lack  Street  and  the  spurious  match  trade!  A  wandering  ice-floe 
from  the  Antarctic  Circle,  as  the  ship  passed  the  Falkland  Islands ; 
and  upon  it,  clear  in  the  light  of  a  great  golden  moonrise,  a  huge 
white  she-bear  with  one  young  cub.  They  were  drifting  northward 
— ever  northward — to  the  heat,  and  the  seeming  firm  ground  be- 
neath their  feet  would  melt  quicker  and  quicker  each  day,  to  fail 
them  altogether  in  the  end,  and  leave  them  to  die  hard — the  strong 
swimmers — in  the  deadly  warmth  of  some  tropic  sea.  Jim  won- 
dered at  the  thoughtlessness  of  his  young  day  of  brute  courage  and 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  591 

heedless  energy,  and  how  he  never  had  a  thought  then  for  the 
mother-bear  and  her  despair  of  saving  her  child  in  that  plain  of 
immeasurable  waters;  while  now,  for  some  unexplained  reason,  it 
was  quite  a  discomfort  to  him  to  think  of  it,  there  in  old  Margy's 
arbour  under  the  clematis.  But  presently  he  suspected  a  reason 
why  he  felt  a  new  feeling  over  it.  How  if  his  hold  over  his  child, 
his  precious  possession,  was  melting — melting  away!  He  brushed 
the  intolerable  thought  aside !  Could  he  not  feel  for  the  poor  soul 
on  the  iceberg,  bear  though  she  was,  without  that?  Oh  yes! — 
Lizarann  would  come  to-morrow. 

All  this  trouble,  and  doctoring,  and  the  like,  makes  a  man  raw, 
thought  poor  Jim  to  himself,  seeking  for  apologies  for  his  failure 
to  attain  a  Spartan  ideal.  'Tain't  like  then-a-days,  when  you 
might  be  in  a  high  sea  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  and  be 
whistled  up  to  take  in  sail — as  he  was,  to  be  sure,  out  of  a  dream 
about  Dolly,  that  very  time  he  saw  the  Flying  Dutchman,  and 
lost  his  sight  the  week  after.  .  .  .  There  now! — where  was  the 
use  of  going  back  on  bygones,  when  Lizarann  would  be  here  to- 
morrow, to  hear  him  tell  again  about  the  Dutchman,  with  all  her 
added  knowledge  of  the  sea  to  help. 

But  it  was  true,  for  all  that,  that  a  man  got  soft  with  nothing 
to  rouse  him  up  like,  and  keep  him  off  of  nursing  up  his  old  griev- 
ances, with  ne'er  a  soul  nigh  to  throw  a  word  to.  Jim  never  felt 
any  too  sure,  neither,  that  his  new  cult  of  music  was  not  an 
enervating  luxury.  Undermining  musical  phrases  crept  into  his 
practice  as  a  chorister  that  made  him  no  better — mind  you! — 
than  a  cry-baby.  There  was  one  in  particular  that  was  almost 
cruel  to  him  in  its  beauty — it  was  as  a  matter  of  fact  an  adapta- 
tion by  the  Rector  of  that  Ave  Maria  of  Arkadelt  that  you  know 
as  well  as  we  do — and  he  sang  it  aloud  to  the  night-wind  stirring 
in  the  trees,  and  the  owls,  for  by  now  night  was  over  all,  in  a  kind 
of  bravado,  to  show  that  he  could  bear  it.  But  his  voice  broke  on 
the  last  cadence,  do  what  he  might.  "There,  ye  see! — just  come 
of  being  so  lonesome ! "  Jim  spoke  aloud  to  the  darkness  and 
the  owls,  to  feel  his  solitude  less  if  it  might  be. 

But  what  did  it  matter  when  his  lassie  was  coming  to-morrow 
— coming  to-morrow ! 

How  the  time  was  passing!  There  went  the  cottage  clock  again 
the  third  time  since  Jim  lighted  his  first  pipe  after  supper. 
Surely  he  must  be  mistaken! — it  would  stop  on  the  stroke  of  ten. 
He  counted  the  deliberate  strokes,  each  with  its  long  preliminary 
warning;  and  on  the  eleventh  said  to  himself  that  he  must  have 
counted  wrong.  Could  he  possibly  be  within  an  hour  of  the  day 


592  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

that  was  to  bring  him  Lizarann?  Listen  for  the  church-clock  of 
the  village,  and  make  sure!  He  could  hear  his  own  heart  beating 
in  the  stillness,  even  through  the  monotone  of  a  cricket  somewhere 
close  at  hand.  Old  Margy's  clock  was  a  bit  fast  always.  .  .  . 

There! — sure  enough  this  time,  the  first  stroke  on  the  wind. 
Jim  counted  steadily  to  the  tenth,  and  all  but  made  quite  certain 
he  had  heard  the  last,  so  long  did  the  pause  seem  to  his  anxiety, 
when  yet  another  came.  No  mistake  this  time.  Eleven !  Bedtime. 

Was  it  true?  One  hour  more,  and  he  might  be  asleep,  to  wake 
up  to  the  day  that  would  bring  him  back  the  thing  that  was  dearer 
to  him  than  the  light  no  day  would  ever  bring  again.  Only  an 
hour! 

His  little  dog,  sharper  of  hearing  even  than  he,  caught  a  com- 
ing sound  afar,  and  started  up  in  sudden  indignation,  dog-wise, 
that  something,  somewhere,  was  presuming  to  exist  without  con- 
sulting him!  Whatever  it  was,  Jim  thought  a  restraining  finger 
in  his  collar  a  good  precautionary  measure;  with  a  slight  admoni- 
tion that  a  smothered  growl,  for  the  present,  would  meet  all  the 
needs  of  the  case.  It  continued  to  express,  under  protest,  a  deep, 
heart-felt  resentment  as  of  a  wrong  too  great  to  be  endured,  and 
still  Jim  could  not  spot  the  cause.  At  last  a  motor-horn,  some- 
where, perhaps,  on  the  far  side  of  the  village — two  miles  away, 
say! 

Loud  and  faint,  by  turns,  through  the  village;  then  clearer  on 
the  open  road,  and  then  the  noise  of  wheels  at  great  speed.  The 
little  dog,  probably  catching  the  blinding  glare  of  the  lamps,  lost 
all  self-control  at  those  two  great  unheard-of  wrongs  to  his  kind, 
and  gave  way  to  his  feelings  without  reserve.  Then  a  rush  and  a 
dust-cloud,  left  to  do  its  worst,  at  leisure,  to  the  lungs  of  man 
and  cattle  and  plants,  and  a  stench  to  poison  the  sweet  air  of 
heaven.  And  then  a  couple  of  folk  had  been  carried,  quicker  than 
need  was,  from  Thanes  Castle  to  Royd  Hall,  with  the  execrations 
of  a  small  population  behind  them. 

Jim  was  too  happy  at  heart  to  curse  even  a  motor-car.  Besides, 
he  remembered  how  once  this  very  car  had  given  his  little  lass  a 
ride.  He  owed  it  a  benediction  rather.  He  felt  his  way  to  his 
couch,  and  had  got  his  wooden  leg  off,  and  found  his  pillow,  before 
the  reek  of  petrol  had  died  away,  and  was  asleep  almost  as  soon  as 
the  little  dog  beside  him.  Was  it  his  last  sleep  there  before  he 
should  hear  his  little  lassie's  voice  again? 

The  gas  was  turned  down  low,  almost  to  extinction,  in  the  ward 
of  the  Chalk  Cliff  Nursing  Home,  where  Adeline  Fossett  was  pre- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  593 

paring  to  pass  the  night  beside  her  little  invalid's  bed.  There 
was  no  other  patient  in.  the  room.  Miss  Jane,  looking  worn  and 
sad,  was  just  saying  good-night,  with  a  small  hand-lamp  in  her 
hand,  whose  green  shade  was  no  help  to  the  pallor  of  either  lady. 
Both  knew  what  was  pending;  neither  knew  how  soon. 

"Ring  if  you  have  the  least  doubt  about  it,  dear,"  said  Miss 
Fanshawe.  "  But  my  own  impression  is  this  will  go  on  a  day 
or  two  longer.  I  can't  say,  but  I  think  if  there's  a  change  you'll 
see  it." 

"  I  won't  scruple  to  call  you.  But  I  suppose  there's  nothing  to 
be  done  that  I  can't  do?" 

"  Nothing  at  all.  No  one  can  do  anything  now.  Good-night, 
Adeline !  "  As  she  opened  the  door  to  go,  a  muffled  clock  outside 
struck  midnight.  "  It's  twenty  minutes  fast,"  said  she,  as  she 
closed  the  door.  Then,  as  Miss  Fossett  sat  in  the  half-darkness  in 
the  large  chair  by  the  bedside,  she  could  hear  two  sounds — the  in- 
terrupted breathing  of  the  little  patient  on  the  bed,  and  the  rapid, 
irritating  ticking  of  her  own  watch,  laid  by  chance  on  something 
resonant.  It  would  become  maddening,  she  knew,  in  the  growth  of 
the  stillness,  as  the  night  took  its  hold  upon  her;  so  presently  she 
rose  and  quenched  it.  Then,  being  up,  she  went  to  the  window, 
just  open  for  ventilation,  and  feeling  the  soft  air,  warm  for  late 
August,  opened  it  gently  to  its  width,  and  leaned  out.  The  voice 
of  the  water  was  a  bare  murmur  now,  away  off  over  half  a  league 
of  sand;  and  the  wind  must  have  changed,  for  the  bells  of  a 
church  a  mile  inland  were  striking  twelve  at  leisure,  and  were 
clear  through  the  silence;  till,  a  railway-yell  cutting  them  off  at 
the  tenth  stroke,  they  wavered,  lost  heart,  and  died.  These  were 
sounds  new  to  the  day  at  Chalk  Cliff,  bathed  for  forty-eight  hours 
in  a  southwest  wind,  off  the  sea. 

"What  did  you  say,  darling?"  She  closed  the  window  gently, 
and  went  back  to  the  bed,  to  hear.  .  .  .  "Why  can't  you  hear 
the  waves?  Is  that  it?  Because  the  tide's  going  out.  Because 
it's  gone  out  as  far  as  it  can  go." 

"  Can't  it  go  no  f urver  ? "  asks  the  voice  from  the  pillow,  through 
a  breath  that  goes  heavily. 

"Not  to-day.  Next  time  it  goes  out  it  will — at  least,  I  think 
so."  The  speaker  was  not  sure  on  the  point,  but  she  had  caught 
sight  of  a  three-quarter  moon,  and  that  would  do  to  quote  in  case 
of  catechism.  She  turned  on  the  light  slightly,  to  talk  by;  then 
sat  by  the  bed  again.  But  Lizarann's  days  of  scientific  inquiry  are 
over.  She  listens  for  the  sea  though,  because  her  Daddy  once  went 
sea-voyages,  still. 


594  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Mustn't  I  be  took  to  my  Daddy  in  free  dyes,  by  the  rilewye  ? " 
The  sound  of  the  railway-whistle  through  the  window  has  helped 
to  this. 

"  Yes,  darling ;  in  three  or  four  days  you  shall  go  to  Daddy. 
There's  a  big  grape  with  the  skin  off  for  you  to  suck.  Such  a 
big  one !  Try  if  you  like  it." 

Lizarann  gives  her  old  nod,  with  the  grape  in  her  mouth.  She 
is  refusing  other  diet  now,  and  it  was  clear  two  days  since  that 
nourishing  food  and  stimulants  had  been  given  every  chance  and 
failed.  She  is  to  be  allowed  to  die  in  peace,  being  in  good  hands. 

"  I  do  love  you,  Teacher,  very,  very  much !  " 

"  So  do  I,  darling.  .  .  .  There  are  no  pips  to  spit  out,  because 
I  took  them  all  out.  Another?  .  .  .  No? — very  well,  dear;  then 
I  won't  bother  you.  .  .  .  The  counterpane? — it's  too  heavy? 
Very  well,  dear,  we'll  have  it  off  .  .  .  so !  " 

Which  of  us,  over  five-and-twenty,  has  the  luck  to  be  still  a 
stranger  to  the  penultimate  restlessness  of  coming  Death — to  the 
hands  that  will  still  be  weakly  seeking  for  God  knows  what! — 
the  speech  that  cannot  frame  some  want  its  would-be  speaker  may 
be  helpless  to  define,  but  will  not  give  up  attempting?  Lizarann 
is  nearing  that  stage  fast — faster  than  Adeline  Fossett  thought 
when  Miss  Jane  left  her  but  now. 

But  her  mind  is  quite  clear  still  on  the  great  main  point  of  her 
small  life.  The  words  "  Only  Daddy  most ! "  show  the  continu- 
ous current  of  her  thought,  coming  as  they  do  a  long  pause  after 
her  apostrophe  to  "  Teacher." 

"  Of  course  Daddy  most,  darling  child !  "  says  the  latter.  "  But 
Mr.  Yorick  very  much  too !  " 

The  name  arouses  enthusiasm.  "  Oh,  very,  very  much  too ! " 
But  this  is  too  great  a  tax  on  the  poor  little  lungs,  tubercle- 
gripped,  and  an  attempt  to  follow  with  a  schedule  of  loves  deserved 
and  granted  fails,  and  quiet  is  imperative. 

Adeline  Fossett  turned  down  the  light  again,  and  remained 
silent,  listening  to  the  heavy  breathing,  with  its  ugly  little  spas- 
modic jerk  now  and  again.  She  was  unhappy  in  her  mind,  over 
and  above  grief.  Here  was  this  little  thing  with  only  a  few  days 
at  most  to  live — she  was  convinced  of  that — and  utterly  uncon- 
scious of  her  state.  Was  it  right — was  it  fair — to  leave  her  so? 
All  the  traditions  of  her  religious  cult  from  youth  upward  said 
no ;  according  to  them,  the  dying  were  to  prepare,  or  be  prepared, 
for  death.  But  when  the  patient  was  simply  slipping  almost  pain- 
lo.«?ly  away — seeming  at  least  to  suffer  only  from  an  inexplicable 
feverish  unrest,  never  from  acute  pain  that  could  not  be  denied 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  595 

at  will — what  was  to  be  gained  by  thrusting  on  a  childish  mind  a 
demand  to  face  the  black  contingency,  to  make  a  formal  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  grave?  Would  it  not  be  safe  to  give  one 
little  soul  Godspeed  into  the  Unknown,  whose  only  care  was  now 
that  each  of  her  many  loves  should  be  known  to  their  recipients, 
each  in  its  right  degree?  Would  not  those  very  loves  be  as  gar- 
ments to  shelter  the  new-born  soul  in  the  world  beyond,  whether 
the  date  of  its  arrival  was  now  or  hereafter?  She  was  shocked  at 
the  venturesome  impiety  of  the  question  she  half -asked  herself: — 
Could  she  not  trust  God  for  that?  A  happy  inspiration  hinted  at 
a  half-answer  in  the  affirmative,  and  biassed  her  to  silence. 

Another  anxiety,  perhaps  more  pressing  still,  took  the  place  of 
that  one.  Ought  she  not  to  have  written  more  explicitly  to  the 
Eectory  about  the  child's  state?  On  her  arrival,  in  answer  to 
Miss  Fanshawe's  telegram,  she  had  found  nothing  to  warrant  pre- 
diction of  the  days,  or  even  weeks,  that  the  tension  might  be  pro- 
longed. All  she  could  say  with  certainty  was  that  Lizarann  was 
at  present  quite  unfit  to  be  moved,  but  that  it  was  impossible  to 
foresee.  We  must  wait  on  events.  But  she  said  never  a  word  to 
set  any  hopes  afoot.  She  had  written  almost  daily;  once  in  an- 
swer to  a  letter  of  Athelstan  Taylor,  telling  how  he  might  have 
to  go  away  for  a  few  days,  and  of  his  resolution  of  silence  with 
respect  to  Jim.  She  was,  at  first,  inclined  to  disappove  this  course, 
but  later  saw  that  it  was  unavoidable,  and  wrote  to  that  effect. 
Still,  the  idea  of  Jim  in  ignorance,  nourishing  hopes,  perhaps, 
while  his  little  lass  lay  there  dying,  was  an  excruciating  one.  She 
said  to  herself  repeatedly  that  it  was  merely  an  idea;  that  the  co- 
temporaneousness  of  a  death  with  far  greater  unconsciousness  of 
its  possibility  than  Jim's  was  an  everyday  occurrence.  What 
would  the  wife,  who  now  hears  of  her  husband's  death  months  ago, 
have  gained  by  the  knowledge  of  her  widowhood,  had  the  news 
come  sooner?  She  pictured  other  instances  to  persuade  the  idea 
away.  But  it  remained. 

Miss  Fanshawe,  to  whom  this  case  was  only  one  of  a  hundred, 
said  to  her,  "If  you  could  spirit  the  child's  father  down  here  to 
be  with  her  when  she  dies,  that  would  be  another  matter.  But  you 
say  that's  impossible.  Why  give  him  ups  and  downs  of  anxiety? 
Tell  him  what  you  like  by  way  of  preparation,  but  not  till  it's  all 
over."  Miss  Fossett  felt  the  truth  of  this  view,  but  the  position 
grated  on  her  moral  sense.  However,  she  felt  she  must  submit 
to  the  discomfort  of  a  sense  of  untruth  for  awhile.  It  was  not 
to  last  long. 

She  must  have  been  dozing,  and  for  longer  than  she  could  have 


596  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

believed  possible,  when  she  waked  suddenly  to  reply  to  the  child, 
who  had  spoken,  with,  "  Yes — darling !  What  did  you  say  ? " 

"Aren't  you  going  to  bed,  Teacher?" 

"Yes,  dear,  presently." 

"'Tin't  night?" 

"Yes,  it's  night.  But  that  doesn't  matter.  I  shall  go  to  bed 
presently." 

"  When  shall  you  go  to  bed  ? "    After  a  pause,  this. 

"Presently,  when  Miss  Jane  comes.  She'll  come  very  soon." 
Then,  in  response  to  something  only  audible  to  close  listening, 
"  No,  darling,  you're  not  to  have  the  nasty  medicine — only  the  nice 
one.  It's  not  time  yet  for  either.  .  .  .  Why  mustn't  you  have 
no  medicine?  .  .  .  Well,  darling,  you  know  we  all  have  to  take 
medicine  when  the  doctor  says  so.  ..." 

" Did  the  doctor  said  I  was  ill? " 

"  Yes,  dear,  the  doctor  said  you  were  ill,  and  to  stop  in  bed  till 
you  were  quite  well  .  .  .  what?" 

"  And  then  go  home  to  my  Daddy  where  Mrs.  Forks  is  ? " 

"And  then  go  home  to  your  Daddy  where  Mrs.  Fox  is."  A 
phase  of  coughing  comes  upon  this;  alleviation  is  tried  for  with 
the  nice  medicine.  But  stimulants  and  sedatives  have  had  their 
day  in  this  case.  Adeline  Fossett  is  becoming  alive  to  the  fact. 
However,  the  nice  medicine  can  still  soothe  a  little;  and  in  half  an 
hour  a  lull  comes,  and  a  kind  of  sleep. 

Then  for  the  watcher  another  deadly  doze,  of  jerks  and  night- 
mares. And  then  another  waking  to  the  sound  of  the  little  pa- 
tient's voice,  curiously  full  of  life  this  time. 

"  When  I'm  took  home  to  my  Daddy,  Teacher,  where  Mrs. 
Forks  is  .  .  ." 

"Yes,  dear!" 

"  Shall  the  children  go  on  digging  and  spaddle  in  the  water,  just 
the  same  like  now  ?  " 

"  Yes,  darling,  just  the  same,  till  it's  too  cold.  Then  they'll  go 
home  and  go  to  school." 

"And  fish  for  sprawns  just  the  same?" 

"  Just  the  same." 

"And  when  they've  gone  to  school  and  no  one's  on  the  beach 
to  see,  will  there  be  high  water  ? " 

"High  water?  Yes,  of  course,  dear — every  day,  just  the  same 
as  now  .  .  .  what  ? " 

"And  low  water?" 

"  And  low  water  too." 

"  Like  when  my  Daddy  went  sea-viyages  ? " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  S97 

"Like  when  your  Daddy  went  sea-voyages."  But  this  has  been 
a  long  talk,  and  has  gone  slowly  against  obstacles  of  speech.  So 
when  Lizarann  ends  with  a  half-inaudible,  "  I  sould  tell  my 
Daddy  that,"  the  torpor  is  returning,  and  it  may  be  she  really 
sleeps,  for  all  that  the  breathing  is  so  difficult.  She  has  per- 
sisted that  she  suffers  no  pain;  so  Miss  Fossett  tries  for  satisfac- 
tion on  that  score.  But  the  fear  is  that  having  no  pain  may 
only  mean  that  the  pain  eludes  description.  Still,  there  is  room 
for  hope,  of  a  sort. 

"I've  heard  many  cases  talk  like  that,  quite  brightly,  just  be- 
fore," says  Miss  Jane,  standing  by  the  bed.  She  has  come  to 
relieve  guard,  and  has  heard  her  friend's  report  of  her  night's 
watching.  Lizarann  has  not  moved  since  she  spoke  last,  an  hour 
ago,  and  still  lies  in  what  may  be  sleep,  breathing  heavily.  The 
jerks  in  the  breathing  do  not  wake  her,  strangely. 

"  She  was  almost  chattering,  one  time,"  says  Miss  Fossett. 
"Poor  little  darling!" 

"About  her  Daddy?" 

"Yes,  and  about  the  high  and  low  tides,  and  how  he  went  sea- 
voyages." 

"  Fancy  that !    The  little  soul !    But  no  delirium  ? " 

"I  think  none.  Just  a  little  feverishness — in  the  half -waking. 
Not  delirium." 

"  You  go  to  bed  now.    I'll  call  you  if  there  is  anything." 

"  Promise  to ! "  A  nod  satisfies  the  speaker,  who  goes  away  to 
lie  down.  As  she  looks  out,  from  a  window  on  her  way,  across 
a  sea  without  a  ripple,  she  understands  why  the  tide  was  unheard. 
Even  now,  scarcely  a  sound!  She  pauses  a  little  to  look  at  the 
planet  blazing  above  the  offing,  and  its  long  path  of  light  upon 
the  water — wonders  is  it  Venus  or  Jupiter? — and  passes  on  to  rest. 
How  callous  is  the  bed  one  lies  down  on  in  one's  clothes,  with 
something  over  one,  to  get  a  few  hours'  sleep !  And  how  hard  they 
are  to  get,  sometimes ! 

Adeline  Fossett  had  had  over  three  hours  when  she  waked  with 
a  start  in  response  to  a  hand  on  her  shoulder.  "  I  should  like  you 
to  come,"  said  Miss  Jane,  who  then  returned  at  once. 

Lizarann,  or  the  shadow  that  had  been  she,  was  propped  up  with 
pillows  on  the  bed  when  Miss  Fossett  followed  her  friend  two 
minutes  later.  "Is  that  Teacher?"  was  what  she  seemed  to  say. 
But  speech  was  very  faint  indeed. 

"  I  don't  think  she  sees  you,"  said  Miss  Jane. 


598  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Can  you  hear  what  I  say,  darling  ? "  Yes,  apparently ;  and 
knows  it  is  Teacher  who  speaks.  What  is  it  we  can  get  for  her? 
For  the  feverish  movement  of  the  hands,  and  the  constant  effort 
to  articulate,  have  all  the  usual  effect  of  baffled  speech,  with 
much  to  say. 

Miss  Fanshawe's  wider  hospital  experience  makes  her  less  re- 
ceptive of  the  idea.  She  waited,  silent,  while  Miss  Fossett  asked 
the  question  more  than  once,  before  any  intelligible  answer  came. 

Then  speech  came  suddenly  to  Lizarann.  She  wanted  to  get  up 
now,  and  go  to  her  Daddy.  Yes! — she  sould  like  to  have  her  new 
flock  on  and  go  to  her  Daddy.  Mustn't  she  go,  Teacher?  To 
which  Teacher  replied :  "  Yes,  darling,  you  shall  go,  very  soon. 
But  it's  night  now,  and  Daddy's  in  bed." 

"ButlsMgo?" 

"Yes — indeed  you  shall!  Very  soon."  Then  Miss  Fossett 
looked  up  at  Miss  Jane,  who  merely  said,  "  Not  very  long  now." 
But  how  strong  the  voice  was  for  a  moment!  Yes — that  would  be 
so  sometimes — sometimes  even  louder  than  that.  Wasn't  she 
speaking  now  ? 

Miss  Fossett  stooped  to  listen  again.  "  I  shall  see  my  Daddy," 
is  all  she  hears.  Yes — Lizarann  shall  see  her  Daddy — it's  a 
promise !  What  is  that  she's  saying  now  ?  Be  quiet  and  listen ! 

"  When  I  see  my  Daddy — when  I  see  my  Daddy  ..." 

"Yes— darling!     What?" 

"When  I  see  my  Daddy  I  shall  call  out,  'Poy-lotl'* 


CHAPTER  XLVin 

HOW  JIM  ADDED  STORIES  TO  HIS  AIR-CASTLE,  AND  SMOKED  HIS  LAST  PIPE. 
HOW  HE  KNEW  CHALLIs's  VOICE  AGAIN.  WHO  HAD  TO  BE  AT  THE 
PARK  GATE  BY  NINE.  HOW  JIM  HEARD  THE  MOTOR  COMING  BACK, 
AND  LIZARANN'S  VOICE.  HOW  ATHELSTAN  TAYLOR  ARRIVED  WITHOUT 
HER.  OP  JIM'S  DEATH  AND  HERS 

ATHELSTAN  TAYLOR  and  Aunt  Bessy  were  at  breakfast  when  the 
telegram  came  to  say  all  was  "over  unexpectedly;  writing."  It 
was  opened  by  the  Rector,  who  rose  and  handed  it  to  his  sister- 
in-law;  then  passed  on  to  the  door  in  time  to  stop  an  incursion  of 
Phoebe  and  Joan  with  "Aunty's  coming  directly,  chicks.  Run 
away  now."  But  not  in  time  to  prevent  Joan  having  good  grounds 
for  asking  Phoebe  why  Aunt  Bessy  was  crying. 

Aunt  Bessy  was,  no  doubt.  And  the  Rector  was  completely  up- 
set, too,  for  the  moment.  He  had  not  the  least  expected  anything 
so  soon.  But  his  work  was  cut  out  for  him  now.  "  I  must  go 
to  poor  Jim  at  once,"  he  said. 

"  Oh,  Athel,  Athel !  "  said  Aunt  Bessy  through  her  sobs.  "  You 
know,  don't  you,  dear,  that  Jim  would  have  been  told  before  if  I 
had  had  my  way?"  It  was  what  Athelstan  himself  afterwards 
spoke  of  to  Adeline  Fossett  as  "poor  Bessy's  I-told-you-so  con- 
solation." The  Rector  was  grieved  for  her  grief,  and  knew  that 
this  expedient  would  really  help  her  to  bear  it,  so  he  was  not 
going  to  grudge  her  all  she  could  get  from  it. 

"  I  know,  Bess,"  said  he.  "  Perhaps  I  was  wrong.  However,  I 
didn't  see  quite  what  else  to  do.  And  I  never  imagined  anything 
so  sudden  as  this.  Poor  Jim !  " 

But  it  was  only  an  easement,  to  be  used  and  discarded.  Miss 
Caldecott  was  ready  to  surrender  the  point — certainly  wouldn't 
rub  it  in.  "  P-perhaps  you  were  right,  after  all !  "  saH  she.  Hec 
grief  for  Lizarann  was  very  real.  And  how  was  she  to  tell 
Phoebe  and  Joan? 

"  You  may  trust  me  to  do  whatever  can  be  done  for  poor  Jim, 
Bess.  I  shall  go  to  him  at  the  Well  at  once.  He  won't  be  ab- 
solutely unprepared  by  the  time  I  tell  him,  because  he  knows  my 
foot  on  the  road  a  long  way  off,  and  he  will  know  something  has 

599 


600  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

happened  by  my  coming  so  early.  It's  not  half -past  eight  yet.  I 
shall  be  with  him  soon  after  nine." 

"  Won't  he  think  you're  bringing  her  with  you  ?  She  was  to 
have  come  here  first,  you  know.  That  was  the  arrangement." 

"  Oh  no !  He  never  used  to  expect  her  till  he  heard  her  call, 
'Pilot.'  You  know?" 

"  Oh,  I  know !    Poor  little  Lizarann ! " 

And  all  those  weary  hours  of  the  watchers  by  the  bedside  of  his 
dying  child,  Jim  had  slept  sound,  treasuring  in  the  heart  of  his 
dreams  the  inheritance  of  that  last  lucky  memory  of  overnight. 
Old  David's  tale  of  how  he  was  condemned  in  boyhood,  to  live 
after  all  into  his  hundredth  year,  stayed  by  Jim  as  a  pledge  of  a 
sure  Lizarann  in  the  days  to  come — a  very  sure  one  in  that  St. 
Augustin's  summer  that  was  all  but  due  now.  Jim  had  slept 
sound,  and  the  story  does  not  grudge  him  his  sweet  delusions. 
The  heart-tonic  of  that  false  diagnosis  of  eighty  years  ago  took  a 
variety  of  dream-forms  before  the  morning,  but  never  lost  its 
savour.  By  turns  it  would  be  a  thing  and  an  incident.  Jim  had 
hardly  time  to  appreciate  the  draught  of  nectar  it  became,  when 
it  had  changed,  even  as  it  touched  his  lips,  to  a  triumphant  arrival 
in  a  glorious  port,  after  stormy  seas,  with  a  wreck  in  tow,  called 
the  Lizarann.  Jim  would  fain  have  kept  that  dream,  to  see  that 
wreck  refitted  ready  for  sea.  But  then  of  a  sudden,  the  wreck 
was  no  wreck,  but  a  tree,  and  Lizarann  was  up  in  the  tree.  And 
Jim  was  just  thinking  now  that  he  would  see  what  Lizarann  was 
really  like,  without  any  wonderment  why  she  was  never  visible 
before,  when  the  tree  changed  its  identity  and  became  old  David 
himself,  or  his  story;  Jim  was  not  clear  which.  But  through  these 
dreams,  and  others,  the  interwoven  warmth  of  joy  was  always  the 
same — the  reinforced  hope  the  old  chap's  yarn  had  left  behind. 

Nevertheless,  when  Jim  woke  he  found  it  hard  to  remember 
where  on  'arth  he  was;  and  didn't  remember,  at  first.  But  he  knew 
that  when  he  did  it  would  be  nice.  And  so  it  was.  It  was 
old  Margy's  cottage,  and  Lizarann  was  coming  back  to  it.  Jim 
noticed  that  everything  said  so  to  him.  A  voluble  hen,  however 
anxious  she  was  he  should  know  about  her  egg,  made  frequent 
reference  to  Lizarann's  return.  A  blackbird  conversed  with  a  fam- 
ily of  wrens  about  it,  and  a  linnet  endorsed  their  view,  that 
Lizarann  was  certainly  coming  back.  A  herd  of  cows,  going  lei- 
surely to  pasture,  lowed  a  great  deal  about  it,  and  repeated  to  each 
other  again  and  again,  "Lizarann  is  coming  back,"  as  they  died 
away  in  the  distance  musically.  And  Jim  knew  that,  far  afield,  a 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  601 

thousand  larks  were  all  of  a  tale,  above  the  shorn  crops  in  the  blue 
heaven,  telling  each  other  Lizarann  was  on  the  road — was  coming 
back  once  more  to  her  Daddy.  His  little  dog  especially  was  clear 
about  it,  but  was  also  clear  that  it  would  never  do  to  neglect 
official  obligations,  and  dragged  Jim  to  the  well-head  with  all  his 
wonted  enthusiasm.  He  was  perfectly  competent  to  give  due  no- 
tice of  her  arrival,  but  business  was  business. 

The  essentials  of  Jim's  breakfast,  arranged  overnight,  scarcely 
brought  him  in  contact  with  human  converse,  because  the  very  lit- 
tle girl,  who  came  with  milk,  and  took  ba'ack  t'yoother  joog,  was  so 
absorbed  in  her  task  as  to  be  able  to  think  of  nothing  else,  and 
speechless.  Besides,  she  had  misgivings  that  the  little  dog  wanted 
her  blood,  and  made  her  visit  as  short  as  possible.  But  when  Jim 
arrived  at  his  well-head,  he  soon  got  a  chance  to  speak  of  his  hopes 
to  a  fellow-creature,  although  it  was  a  young  one — too  young  to 
talk  the  matter  out  with.  It  was  not  always  easy  to  identify  these 
youngsters,  as  they  made  no  allowance  for  blindness;  only  nodding 
affirmatives  when  asked  their  names  right.  Jim  had  to  impute 
wrong  names,  and  provoke  corrections. 

"  You're  little  Billy  Lathrop,  young  man,  I  take  it  ? " 

"No-ah  be-ant.  Oy  be  Ma-atthew  Ree-ad  doon  th'  la-an — two 
dower  off  Lathrop's." 

"  I  reckoned  you  might  be.  It's  your  brother  Jack  I've  to  thank 
for  the  loan  of  this  young  tyke.  He'll  be  wanting  to  see  him  back. 
Suppose  you  was  to  tell  him  he  may  have  him  back  to-morrow. 
Or  next  day  at  farthest.  A  smart  young  character  like  you  can 
begin  larnin'  to  carry  messages." 

"  Oy'll  tell  un." 

"  Because  Lizarann's  coming  back — that's  what  you've  got  to 
tell.  Who  is  it's  a-coming  back,  hey  ?  " 

"  L'woyzara-ann." 

"My  little  maid,  d'ye  see?" 

"  Yower  little  may-ud." 

"  That's  a  likely  young  customer.  Now  mind  you  tell  your 
brother  Jack  just  that  and  nothing  else,  Matthew  Read."  And 
Matthew  Read  departed  with  his  pails,  leaving  Jim  all  the  happier 
for  having,  as  it  were,  substantialized  and  filled  out  his  hopes  by 
this  little  performance. 

The  pipe  Jim  lighted  with  a  vesuvian  after  discharging  a  few 
more  water-claims,  now  and  then  recurring  to  the  subject  nearest 
his  heart  with  the  more  talkworthy  claimants,  was  as  happy  a  pipe 
as  he  had  ever  smoked.  As  the  sun  rose  higher,  a  full-blooded 
southern  Phoebus  with  no  stint  of  heat  in  his  veins,  he  could  rejoice 


602  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

in  the  evident  influence  of  this  mysterious  St.  Augustin,  of  whom 
he  had  never  heard  before,  but  who  clearly  could  make  a  summer 
for  him  and  his  little  lass.  It  was  coming,  and  so  was  she. 
She  would  not,  maybe,  be  her  old  self  for  a  bit.  But,  then,  no 
more  had  old  David  been.  And  that  was  eighty-four  years  ago — 
over  half  a  century  before  Jim  was  born !  Any  number  of  glorious 
expectations  might  entrench  themselves  behind  such  a  precedent — 
making  a  fortress  in  his  soul  against  Despair. 

Who  says  tobacco  cannot  be  enjoyed  in  the  dark?  Jim  had 
heard  that  story,  and  thought  to  himself  as  he  cleared  his  pipe 
of  ashes  that  he  could  tell  another  tale.  But  what  was  that  pipe 
to  the  pipes  he  would  smoke  when  his  little  lass  was  back,  to  make 
all  this  caution  in  lighting  them  needless  ?  It  was  as  good  as  hav- 
ing eyes  himself  to  have  the  child  beside  him.  But  suppose  now 
he  had  been  blind  from  birth!  Think  of  what  it  would  have  been 
like  to  have  never  a  tale  to  tell  to  his  little  lass!  He  had  so  lost 
himself  in  his  love  for  the  child  that  this  little  bit  of  optimism 
came  spontaneously,  without  a  shade  of  bitter  comment  about  be- 
ing thankful  for  small  mercies. 

It  was  curious  to  him  now — admittedly  so — that  he  had  shrunk 
from  hearing  again  the  sound  of  the  waves,  seeing  he  was  actually 
looking  forward  to  hearing  Lizarann  tell  of  them.  It  was  on  one 
account  a  disappointment  to  him,  that  since  she  was  taken  away  to 
Chalk  Cliff  the  weather  had  been  so  calm.  It  was  true  that  the 
one  letter  she  had  written  him — just  at  the  time  of  that  slight 
fluctuation  upwards  in  the  first  week  of  her  stay — had  told  of  a 
rough  sea,  with  such  big  waves;  but  then  it  had  told  also  of  how 
a  pleasure-boat  had  been  shoved  off  and  a  lady  got  wet  through. 
Would  that  rough  sea  help  him  to  tell  her,  better  than  before,  what 
the  waves  were  like  when  he  was  on  that  steamer  in  the  China  seas, 
and  a  typhoon  swept  the  decks  clear? 

Talking  was  going  on,  down  the  road.  Somebody  was  referring 
to  the  Rectory,  speaking  of  it  as  the  parsonage.  Jim  listened. 
Pa'arson  had  coom  whoam  yesterday.  That  was  all  right,  but  had 
no  one  else  come  to  the  Rectory  ?  Yesterday  was  exactly  six  weeks 
and  a  day  since  Lizarann's  departure.  But  Jim  had  hedged 
against  despair  with  constant  self-reminders  that  her  not  having 
come  need  mean  nothing.  So  he  could  ask  questions,  equably. 

"News  of  th'  Master,  belike,  Jarge?"  He  affected  great  ease 
of  speech — a  chatty  nonchalance — as  he  awaited  the  arrival  of  the 
voice  he  had  recognized  at  the  road-end  of  the  avenue  to  his  Well. 
He  had  stumped  along  it  quick,  though,  for  a  wooden  leg  and  a 
stick. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  603 

"  Nowt  amiss  has  gotten  t'  Maister,"  said  the  bee-tender,  taking 
time.  "  Not  for  to  reach  my  ears,  this  marn'n." 

"  Thought  I  heard  some  guess-chap  give  him  his  name,  Jarge. 
Yonder  along,  a  good  cast  down  the  road.  Who  might  you  have 
been  talking  to  ?  " 

"  Po-ast." 

"Ah!— and  what  said  the  Post?" 

Jarge  took  more  time,  during  which  Jim  urged  him  to  fix  his 
mind  firmly  on  the  Rector.  Jarge  had  understood  that  the  Rector 
had  come  home,  and  that  the  Post's  son  had  just  gone  off  to  him 
with  a  telegram  when  the  Post  left  home.  This  was  as  much  as 
Jarge  could  be  expected  to  know  all  at  once,  outside  bee-craft;  so 
Jim  spared  him  further  catechism.  "  Thank  'ee  kindly,  Jarge ! " 
said  he.  "  What  o'clock  might  you  make  it  ? "  Jarge  made  it  a 
qwoo-aater  to  eight-yut  by  th'  soon,  and  Jim  thanked  him  again, 
and  stumped  back  to  the  well-head. 

In  his  sanguine  mood,  he  took  a  rose-coloured  view  of  that  tele- 
gram. Lizarann  and  Teacher  had  not  come  back  yet,  but  it 
heralded  their  coming.  Why! — what  else  could  it  be,  unless  it 
was  no  consarn  of  his,  anyhow?  He  lit  another  pipe,  and  gave 
himself  to  happy  anticipations;  for  the  influence  of  old  David's 
early  experience  was  strong  on  him.  Being  alone,  he  talked  to  his 
little  dog,  to  whom  he  could  speak  freely;  for  with  his  keen  hearing 
he  could  be  sure  he  was  alone,  even  if  the  young  pup's  quiescence 
had  been  no  proof.  It  wouldn't  be  but  a  day,  or  two  at  most — so 
Jim  told  that  pup — before  Jack  Read  could  reclaim  his  property; 
if,  indeed,  he  hadn't  got  a  better  little  tyke  by  now,  as  very  like 
was  the  case;  a  superior  article  altogether,  to  whom  Keating  was 
unknown,  and  who  especially  never  ran  after  chickens.  However, 
it  wouldn't  do  to  make  too  sure,  because  maybe  the  little  lass 
wouldn't,  just  yet  awhile,  be  allowed  out  by  the  doctor  on  cold 
mornings,  in  which  case  things  would  have  to  remain  as  they  were 
for  a  bit  of  time.  But  a  day  would  come  when  little  tykes  would 
be  superfluities,  and  Jack  Read  might  have  this  one  back,  and 
see  what  he  could  do  towards  laming  him  better  manners  in  the 
house.  The  object  of  these  remarks  misconceived  the  drift  of 
them  altogether,  and,  taking  them  for  recognition  of  his  own 
merits,  heaved  a  sigh  over  the  shortcomings  of  other  little  dogs, 
and  fell  asleep  in  the  sun. 

Jim  sat  again  alone  and  smoked,  and  listened  to  the  growing 
sounds  of  the  day,  the  insect  life  stirring  in  the  sunshine,  the 
birds  that  meant  to  sing  the  summer  out ;  growing  fewer  now,  but 
revived  by  St.  Augustin,  evidently.  He  could  hear,  at  the  inter- 


604  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

val  of  each  new  furrow,  the  team  of  horses  in  an  old-world  plough 
swing  round;  and  the  ploughman's  voice,  now  near  and  clear,  now 
at  the  far  hedge  of  his  field,  and  dim.  Somewhere  a  long  way  off 
a  threshing-machine  was  droning,  and  as  the  sound  of  it  came  and 
went,  and  rose  and  fell  with  the  wind,  Jim  thought  of  his  little 
lass ;  and  how  that  one  letter  of  hers  old  Margy  had  re-read  to  him 
so  often  had  told  how  she  had  heard  the  sea  sound  so  through 
the  night,  now  more,  now  less.  If  she  had  not  come  back  to  the 
Rectory  yesterday,  as  he  hoped,  was  she  up  now  and  out  on  the 
beach?  .  .  .  but  no — hardly!  It  was  barely  eight  o'clock.  Yes 
— there  went  the  church-bells !  But  he  could  not  count  the  strokes 
for  the  noise  some  hedge-sparrows  made  suddenly,  almost  close  to 
his  ear. 

That  was  a  harvest  cart  with  a  many  horses,  Jim  supposed,  and 
every  horse  with  bells.  Going  to  load  up,  at  a  guess;  for  it  was 
soon  gone  by,  and  its  bells  a  memory.  Then  another  sound  of 
•wheels  stole  in,  and  grew.  Not  a  cart;  carts  rattle.  Some  sort  of 
carriage,  coming  .from  Furnival  Station.  Not  indigenous  to  this 
village;  Jim  had  learned  every  native  wheel  by  heart.  Not  a  very 
dashing  carriage  neither!  It  went  slow,  and  the  horse  seemed  to 
think  of  every  step.  A  hired  fly  from  the  station,  of  course! 
Why  didn't  Jim  spot  that  before? 

Now,  suppose  it  had  been  eight  in  the  evening,  it  might  have 
been  Teacher  bringing  Lizarann  from  the  station.  At  this  time  in 
the  morning  ridiculous,  of  course!  Still,  the  thought  was  nice. 

That  fly  had  pulled  up  on  the  road,  and  not  so  far  off.  Jim 
could  hear  interchanges  between  the  driver  and  his  fare,  evidently 
male  and  English.  Did  Jim  know  that  voice  ? 

"  All  right — pull  up  here !  I'll  get  down  and  walk  the  rest  of  the 
•way.  How  far  is  it  ? " 

"  For  to  step  it  af ut  ?    Twenty  minutes,  easy." 

"  Which  does  '  easy '  mean  ? " 

"  Easy  for  time,  mister.  You'll  have  to  be  a  bit  brisk  to  do  it  in 
twenty  minutes.  Give  you  twenty-three,  to  do  it  without  idlin'." 

A  foot  on  the  road,  a  coach-door  that  wouldn't  hasp,  a  discovery 
that  the  driver  has  only  one  and  elevenpence  change  for  half-a-sov- 
ereign,  and  then  the  half-sovereign  is  on  its  way  back  to  Furnival, 
and  the  fare  has  started  on  his  twenty-three  minutes'  walk,  with 
some  of  the  change  in  his  pocket.  But  he  is  not  going  to  do  it 
•without  idling,  it  seems. 

Jim  heard  him  approach  the  well-gap,  and  come  to  a  stand. 
Then  he  turned  up  the  brick  pathway.  Now,  who  was  this  chap 
going  to  be  ? 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  605 

"  Well,  Jim  Coupland !  Where's  Lizarann  ?  I've  come  to  pay 
her  a  visit.  And  you  too !  " 

Jim  knew  Challis  again  the  moment  he  heard  his  voice  close. 
"  Aha !  "  he  exclaimed  joyfully.  "  You're  the  gentleman.  Came 
with  the  Master  nigh  a  month  agone ! "  And  the  cordiality  of 
Blind  Samson's  big  right  hand  was  all  the  greater  that  it  was 
welcoming,  not  only  a  friend,  but  what  was  in  a  sense  the  dawn  of 
Lizaraun.  For  this  gentleman,  whose  name  had  slipped  Jim's 
memory,  would  never  have  asked  for  her  on  insufficient  grounds. 
In  a  flash  of  his  mind,  Jim  had  inferred  that  his  visitor,  on  his 
way  to  the  Rectory,  had  decided — from  information  received — that 
his  lassie,  due  there  the  day  before,  would  be,  or  might  be, 
already  with  her  father  at  the  Abbey  Well.  A  very  reasonable 
view !  It  was  almost  an  assurance  that  his  child  had  arrived,  that 
this  gentleman  should  speak  of  her  thus. 

Challis  left  his  hand  in  Jim's,  while  he  said,  "But  where's  the 
kid?" 

Said  Jim,  with  confidence,  "If  you'd  come  another  half -hour 
later,  I  lay  you'd  have  found  her,  back  with  her  Daddy.  Six  mar- 
tal  weeks  she's  been  away.  But  you'll  find  her  at  the  Master's,  I 
take  it,  or  meet  on  the  road." 

Challis's  voice  hung  fire  a  little  as  he  answered,  "  I'm  not  on 
my  way  to  the  Rectory  now.  I  shall  have  to  pay  my  respects  to 
Miss  Coupland  later.  Jolly  glad  she's  back,  though,  Jim,  for 
your  salfe!  How's  she  coming  on?  All  the  better  for  the  sea,  I'll 
answer  for  it."  Jim  was  not  the  one  to  be  behindhand  in  op- 
timism. "Done  her  a  warld  o'  good,  I'm  told!  Only,  ye  see,  I 
haven't  set  eyes  on  the  Master  this  week  past,  and  I  have  to  put 
my  dependence  on  the  two  little  ladies,  seeing  the  old  mother  at 
the  cottage  has  gone  to  London." 

At  this  point  Jim  saw  his  way  to  still  further  flattering  his  cer- 
tainty of  Lizarann's  return  by  sending  a  message  about  her  to  his 
sister,  so  he  let  Aunt  Stingy  into  the  conversation  provisionally. 
He  worded  a  couleur  de  rose  account  of  his  invalid,  subject  to  re- 
serves, and  asked  Challis  to  be  the  bearer  of  it. 

"What's  that,  Jim?  .  .  .  Ah,  to  be  sure;  I  had  forgotten 
that.  Mrs.  Steptoe's  your  sister.  Yes — I'll  tell  her."  His  man- 
ner was  unsettled,  tense,  exalte,  but  not  that  of  a  man  preoccupied 
with  any  but  pleasant  thoughts.  Jim  felt  that  some  inquiry  after 
this  relative  of  his  would  not  be  out  of  place.  He  hoped  she  was 
giving  satisfaction  to  "the  mistress,"  and  half  suggested  that  her 
cooking  was  what  he  was  asking  about.  His  shrewd  hearing  de- 
tected discomfort  in  Challis's  reply :  "  Oh  aye — yes !  Very  good 


606  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

wholesome  cooking ! "  Had  lie  touched  a  sore  subject  ?  He  de- 
cided that  he  had,  and  was  sorry  when  the  gentleman  said  abruptly : 
"  That's  all  right  enough.  Can't  stop  now !  Got  to  get  to  the 
Park  Gate  by  nine.  How  far  do  you  make  it  out  to  the  Park 
Gate  ? "  Jim  gave  what  information  he  had  to  give ;  but  Challis 
remembered  quite  enough  of  the  ground  to  know  that  the  fly- 
driver's  estimate  was  a  low  one;  in  fact,  it  had  been  the  interest 
of  the  latter  to  minimize  the  distance,  in  order  to  get  away  as 
soon  as  he  could.  "  I  shall  have  to  look  alive,"  said  Challis.  He 
shook  Jim's  hand  cordially,  and  started. 

In  the  accident  of  passing  words  it  had  so  chanced  that  if  either 
of  these  two  men  had  been  asked — how  came  he  to  know  that 
Lizarann  had  returned  to  the  Rectory? — he  would  have  referred 
to  the  other  as  an  authority.  Challis's  confidence  that  he  would 
find  Lizarann  at  the  Well  was  only  the  echo  of  some  words  of  the 
Rector's  three  weeks  previously,  fixing  the  date  of  her  return ;  while 
Jim's  assurance  that  she  was  at  the  Rectory  was  based  on  Challis's 
way  of  taking  her  presence  at  the  Well  for  granted.  Certainly 
when  they  parted,  each  had  an  image  in  his  mind  of  the  invalid 
back  again,  much  improved,  and  looking  forward  to  her  meeting 
with  her  Daddy. 

Such  serene  unconsciousness  of  the  truth  as  Jim's  was  at  this 
moment  strikes  harshly  on  one's  sense  of  probability;  but,  probable 
or  no,  it  was  actual.  Jim  had  not  experienced  such  happiness  since 
his  child  left  him  to  live,  during  her  absence,  on  hopes  of  her  re- 
turn in  renewed  health.  She  was  coming  now ;  not  a  doubt  of  it ! 
She  was  actually  near  at  hand;  so  near  that,  with  a  guide,  he 
could  almost  have  walked  the  distance  on  his  wooden  leg.  She 
was  coming.  .  .  . 

Then  a  gust  of  disbelief  that  anything  so  good  could  be  his,  so 
soon,  seized  on  his  faculties,  and  made  his  judgment  dizzy.  He 
must  be  silent  and  patient,  and  wait. 

But  with  this  added  assurance  of  Lizarann,  pending  or  near  at 
hand,  Time  got  a  quality  of  tediousness.  The  half-hour  that  fol- 
lowed on  Challis's  invasion  seemed  longer  than  all  the  previous 
half-hours  of  the  morning  added  together.  Till  then  Jim  had  been 
making  all  allowance  for  the  chance  that  Lizarann  was  not  due 
till  to-morrow,  or  even  next  day.  The  question  was  an  open  one. 
Challis  had  managed  to  leave  behind  him  an  implication  that  she 
had  arrived.  How  the  sluggard  minutes  would  crawl  now,  till  she 
came !  Well — patience ! 

Why  was  the  gentleman  going  to  the  Park,  not  the  Rectory? 
Pending  Lizarann,  Jim  thought  it  worth  while  to  wonder  at  this; 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  607 

or,  indeed,  at  any  other  trifle  that  would  hold  his  mind  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  help  his  patience.  He  had  hardly  noticed  Challis's 
distrait  manner  at  the  time,  but  it  came  back  to  him  now.  Yes — 
why  was  the  gentleman  not  going  to  the  Rectory?  Of  course,  he 
was  only  known  to  him  as  a  guest  there ;  might  have  been  a  perfect 
stranger  at  the  Hall,  for  anything  that  appeared  to  the  contrary. 
But  it  was  the  way  he  had  disclaimed  the  Rectory  that  clashed  with 
Jim's  slight  knowledge  of  him.  "Not  on  his  way"  there  now! 
"  However,  it  was  no  concern  of  Jim's,  anyhow !  Think  of  Lizar- 
ann  again — only  Lizarann !  " 

His  mind  ran  back  to  the  old  match-selling  days  in  Bladen 
Street.  There  was  the  terrible  January  night  again,  no  darker 
than  his  day  was  now,  for  all  he  felt  St.  Augustin's  sun  on  his 
hands  and  face;  for  all  he  knew  at  a  guess  how  the  white  road 
would  have  glared  on  the  eyes  he  had  lost,  even  as  his  last  memory 
of  daylight  blazed  on  them  still,  leagues  away  in  Africa.  There 
was  he  again! — a  spot  in  the  darkness  that  was  his  lot  for  ever;  a 
something  made  of  sick  torture,  borne  in  a  litter;  and  then  the 
voice  of  his  little  lass,  and  the  touch  of  her  lips  as  he  lay.  .  .  . 
Well ! — at  least  he  had  a  man's  heart  in  him  then,  and,  crushed  as 
he  was,  made  light  of  his  agony,  to  spare  her.  That  was  a  consola- 
tion to  him  now. 

His  lot  for  ever !  His  lot,  that  is,  so  long  as  he  himself  should 
live  to  bear  it.  His  lot,  till  what  was  left  of  what  was  once  a 
man  was  laid  by  what  once  was  Dolly,  in  a  grave!  Then  touch 
and  hearing  would  be  gone  too,  and  he  and  Dolly  alike  forgotten 
in  the  black  void  of  the  time  to  come.  .  .  .  What  did  he  matter  ? 
He  flung  the  unconsidered  unit,  himself,  aside,  in  view  of  a  new 
terror  that  came  suddenly — an  image  of  his  little  lass  without  her 
Daddy.  That  was  too  much  pain  to  bear.  To  think  of  the  lassie 
left  alone! 

But  why  think  of  it  at  all,  yet  awhile?  Might  not  he  see  her 
again  within  the  hour?  Was  it  not  a  chance  that  even  now  she 
was  on  her  way,  coming coming?  .  .  . 

What  was  that  ?  A  dog's  bark  he  knew  quite  well — the  Rector's 
dog — somewhere  over  by  the  Rifle  Butts.  Near  a  mile  off — yes! — 
but  clear  to  the  sharpened  hearing  of  a  blind  man.  Equally  clear 
to  his  dog  too,  asleep  in  the  sun,  and  calling  for  prompt  action. 
The  little  tyke  started  up,  barking  in  reply,  and  scoured  away  to 
make  his  presence  felt  elsewhere.  Jim's  thought  stopped,  that  he 
might  listen  for  a  distant  step  oh  the  road,  a  step  he  knew  well.  A 
great  swinging  stride  unlike  any  other  man's  in  those  parts — how 
mistake  it?  But  another  quarter  of  an  hour  must  pass  before 


608  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

either  could  have  articulate  speech  of  the  other,  mere  shouting 
apart.  Jim  was  just  on  the  very  verge  of  his  release  from  sus- 
pense, and  could  not  bear  to  wait  a  moment  longer,  patience  or  no ! 
He  started  along  the  paved  way  that  led  to  the  road,  guiding  him- 
self, as  he  could  well  do,  by  touching  the  curb  with  his  stick.  It 
was  all  plain  sailing  to  him,  so  far,  and  no  guide  was  needed. 

He  stood  and  listened,  waiting  for  the  approaching  footsteps. 
He  could  hear  his  own  little  deserter's  bark,  no  great  distance  down 
the  road;  and  through  it,  at  intervals,  the  bark  of  the  other  dog, 
coming  slowly  nearer.  But  otherwise,  nothing  outside  the  sum  of 
noises  he  could  know  the  day  by  from  the  night,  a  monotone  with 
here  and  there  a  special  sound  of  beast  or  bird  or  insect.  Yes! — 
there  was  another  sound,  some  way  off  still;  the  motor-car  that  had 
passed  the  cottage  last  night,  coming  from  the  Hall.  Jim  knew 
its  special  hoot  of  old;  could  have  sworn  to  it  among  a  dozen 
others. 

An  old  turf -cutter  was  near  enough  to  see  Jim  at  this  moment, 
and,  after,  told  what  he  saw.  This  man  was  some  way  off,  trim- 
ming the  roadside  turf;  but  his  eyes  were  good,  though  he  was  deaf 
as  any  post. 

He  saw  Jim — so  his  tale  ran — standing  where  the  path  began, 
close  against  the  road.  He  seemed  to  be  listening  for  something. 
Quite  unexpectedly  he  saw  him  throw  up  his  arms  as  though  sur- 
prised or  delighted;  but  of  this  the  old  man,  hearing  nothing,  could 
not  speak  with  certainty.  He  had  somehow  an  impression,  though, 
that  Jim  was  "  raising  a  great  shouting."  Then  he  saw  him  step 
suddenly  into  the  road,  and  limp  with  his  stick,  but  with  wonderful 
activity,  towards  the  twist  in  its  course  that  it  makes  round  the 
clump  of  thorn-trees  that  shuts  in  the  Abbey  Well.  The  old  turf- 
cutter  saw  him  last  just  as  he  turned  that  corner. 

Immediately  after,  a  motor-car,  going  at  a  mad  speed,  tore  along 
the  road  from  the  Park.  Whether  this  car  was  sounding  its 
trumpet  the  deaf  man  could  not  say.  All  he  knew  was  that  it  fol- 
lowed without  slacking  down  round  the  corner  Jim  had  been  last 
seen  at.  It  vanished  in  a  thick  cloud  of  its  own  dust.  The  deaf 
man  "misdoubted  something  had  gone  wrong,"  not  from  any 
noise,  of  course,  but  because  he  "  watched  along  the  road  "  for  the 
dust-cloud,  and  none  came.  He  suspected  nothing,  however,  be- 
yond some  hitch  in  the  car's  working-gear,  until  some  ten  minutes 
later,  when  the  motor  came  back,  slowly — or  relatively  slowly. 
Then  he  saw  that  it  contained  a  young  lady,  who  looked,  he  said, 
"all  mazed  and  staring  like";  a  gentleman,  who  lay  back  with 
blood  running  down  his  face,  and  seemed  "no  ways  better  than 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  609 

dead,"  and  the  chauffeur.  Then  a  littlo  dog  came  barking  down 
the  road,  and  went  after  the  motor-car.  He  could  see  it  was  bark- 
ing. That  was  all  he  could  tell.  He  laid  his  turf -spud  aside,  and 
went  along  the  road  to  find  Jim  and  learn  what  he  could  of  the 
mishap. 

Athelstan  Taylor  left  the  Rectory,  with  a  heavy  heart,  shortly 
before  nine  o'clock.  He  knew  he  should  find  Jim  at  the  Abbey 
Well,  and  he  wanted  to  make  sure  the  news  should  not  reach  him 
through  any  other  channel.  It  would  inevitably  leak  out  now. 
He  knew  well  how  things  of  the  kind  will  travel,  contrary  to  all 
calculations. 

It  occurred  to  him  just  as  he  was  starting  that  if  he  took  his 
dog  with  him,  Jim's  prevision  of  something  wrong,  which  he  looked 
to  as  likely  to  make  his  task  easier,  would  have  time  to  mature 
before  his  arrival.  Jim  would  hear  the  dog's  bark,  and  recognize 
it,  long  before  his  own  footsteps  could  reach  his  ears.  He  had 
not  at  first  intended  to  have  the  animal  with  him,  but  he  now 
went  back  and  released  him,  and  felt  that  the  idea  was  a  good 
one.  He  could  cover  the  ground,  going  by  the  short-cut  near  the 
Rifle  Butts,  in  less  than  half-an-hour.  He  might  be  hindered  on 
the  way,  but  at  least  he  would  be  as  quick  as  he  could.  No  one 
should  be  beforehand  with  Jim,  if  he  could  help  it. 

The  hindrances  were  few  and  slight.  Two  or  three  colloquies  of 
as  many  minutes  each,  ending  with  apologies  for  their  brevity, 
made  up  the  total  of  delay.  Twenty-five  minutes  may  have  passed 
since  Challis  left  Jim  to  keep  his  appointment,  when  the  Rector 
reached  the  Rifle  Butts  and  took  the  path  that  goes  across  from 
them  to  the  Abbey  Well;  it  branches  off  from  the  path  Lizarann 
and  Joan  followed  to  go  to  the  cottage. 

What  ensued  does  not  explain  itself,  unless  it  is  made  quite  clear 
that  the  curve  in  the  road  round  the  Abbey  Well  was  no  mere 
kink,  but  a  full  curve,  like  the  letter  U.  One  side  of  this  U 
looked  towards  the  Hall,  the  other  to  the  village;  and  beyond  it 
the  turning  for  Thanes  Castle,  along  which  the  motor-car  came 
last  night.  The  point  to  keep  in  mind  is  that  the  entrance  to 
the  Abbey  Well  gave  towards  the  Hall,  not  the  village.  Never- 
theless, the  Well  was  visible  from  the  Rifle  Butts  through  a  gap 
in  the  trees,  which  grew  thicker  on  each  side  of  the  curve  of  the 
road,  concealing  a  portion  of  it  very  completely.  It  was  into  this 
the  motor-car  vanished  from  the  eyes  of  the  deaf  turf-cutter. 

Athelstan  Taylor,  half  broken-hearted  as  he  thought  of  the  task 
before  him,  had  a  struggle  with  himself  not  to  flinch  from  it,  and 


610 

slacken  the  speed  that  was  bringing  it  so  near.  He  could  see, 
shortly  after  passing  the  Rifle  Butts,  the  figure  of  Lizarann's 
Daddy,  and  could  picture  to  himself  his  unsuspicious  ignorance. 
How  sick  he  felt!  How  glad  he  would  be  when  it  was  over! 

He  saw  Jim  rise  from  his  seat  and  make  for  the  entrance,  and 
conjectured  that  his  own  footstep  was  the  cause.  He  saw  him 
stop  and  wait  when  he  reached  the  road,  and  then  lost  sight  of  the 
entry  for  a  moment.  But  he  thought  he  heard  Jim  shout,  as  he 
had  heard  him  often  shout  before  now,  in  answer  to  little  Lizar- 
ann's call  of  "  Pilot."  When  he  next  saw  the  entry  there  was  no 
Jim. 

He  had  to  go  only  the  length  of  the  curve  to  get  to  the  place 
where  he  saw  Jim  last.  He  was  within  five  minutes  of  it  now. 
Courage ! 

That  was  the  motor-car  from  the  Hall  making  that  hideous 
noise.  Louis  Rossier,  the  chauffeur,  going  by  himself,  of  course! 
He  always  broke  out  of  bounds  when  alone,  and  that  speed  was 
something  awful.  The  Felixthorpes  must  have  stayed  at  Thanes. 
Bess  had  said  they  were  there;  and  now  M.  Louis  was  going 
to  fetch  them.  Would  he  never  slacken  down  at  that  bend  in  the 
road?  Apparently  not.  A  terrible  corner  that,  to  whirl  a  motor 
round  at  sixty  miles  an  hour!  He  could  hear  Jim's  little  dog 
bark  in  answer  to  his  own,  but  he  was  still  some  minutes'  walk 
from  the  road.  .  .  . 

What  was  that  cry?  What  were  those  cries,  rather — cries  of 
panic  or  of  warning,  with  a  woman's  shriek  above  them?  And 
what  was  that  terrible  cry  in  a  voice  he  knew  ? — Jim's  voice ! 

Then  he  was  conscious,  in  spite  of  distance,  of  rapid,  panic- 
stricken  interchange  of  speech.  Two  voices,  a  man's  and  a 
woman's,  mixed  with  the  pulsations  of  the  shut-off  machinery  of 
the  car,  checked  in  its  course.  Then  of  alternations  of  the  sounds 
of  the  working-gear,  which  he  knew  meant  the  turning  of  the 
car  in  the  narrow  space.  Then,  as  he  reached  the  spot,  the  sound 
of  its  resumed  movement,  and  its  trumpet-signal  again.  When 
he  arrived  it  was  vanishing,  but  he  took  little  heed  of  it  or  its  con- 
tents. All  his  thought  was  for  the  man  who  lay,  crushed  and 
groaning,  on  the  bare  road  in  the  sun.  Would  his  message  need 
to  be  given  now? 

"  Twice  over's  soon  told,  Master,  and  there  an  end ! "  Those 
seemed  to  be  Jim's  words  to  the  man  who  kneeled  over  him,  not 
daring  to  touch  him  yet  till  he  should  know  more.  Should  he 
examine  him  where  he  lay,  or  try  at  once  to  move  him  cff  the 
road? 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  611 

"  Oh,  Jim — Jim  Coupland — who  has  done  this  ? "  He  raised 
the  head  that  lay  in  the  dust  with  cautious  strength,  fearing  that 
any  touch  might  only  be  so  much  more  needless  pain.  But  there 
was  no  appearance  of  flinching;  and  he  raised  him  further  yet,  to 
rest  against  his  knee;  then  carefully  wiped  the  forehead,  red  with 
blood  from  a  cut  on  the  temple,  but  still  there  was  no  sign  of 
flinching  from  his  touch.  "  Can  you  bear  to  be  lifted,  Jim  ?  .  .  . 
Say  if  I  hurt  you." 

"  Ah ! — get  me  up  out  of  the  gangway.  I'm  a  job  for  the  doctor, 
I  take  it.  ..."  His  voice  became  inaudible,  but  not  before  the 
word  "  Water ! "  had  passed  his  lips.  The  old  turf -cutter  was 
coming  slowly.  If  he  could  be  raised  and  moved  to  a  safe  place 
by  the  roadside,  for  the  moment,  further  help  could  be  got.  The 
Rector  knew  the  old  man  would  not  hear  if  he  spoke  at  his  loud- 
est, but  he  contrived  to  make  him  understand.  Between  them 
they  raised  poor  Jim  gently,  and  got  him  out  of  the  blazing 
sun.  His  fortitude  was  great  to  utter  no  sound — or,  was  he  in- 
jured to  death,  and  half  insensible?  The  Rector  recalled  what 
he  had  heard  of  him  in  that  old  accident,  and  thought  the 
former. 

No,  he  was  not  insensible!  For  when  they  had  laid  him  on 
some  soft  bracken  a  little  way  off  the  road,  and  the  old  man  had 
gone  for  assistance  to  the  nearest  cottage — for  he  himself  did  not 
dare  to  leave  him — Jim  tried  again  to  speak. 

"  What,  Jim  ?  Say  it  again ! "  The  Rector  put  his  ear  close 
to  catch  the  words. 

"  Make  the  best  of  me,  and  let  my  lassie  come ! "  He  was  wan- 
dering, clearly.  But  it  was  easy  to  see  his  meaning — that  he 
wished  to  seem  as  little  hurt  as  might  be  to  his  child,  whom  he 
imagined  near  at  hand.  Easier  still  when  he  added,  "  She  came 
afore.  Let  her  come  now !  " 

"Lizarann  is  not  here  now,  Jim."  The  speaker's  voice  half 
choked  him.  But  why  was  this  worse  than  the  other  telling 
would  have  been  ? 

He  was  speaking  again.  It  was  only  repetition.  "  She  came 
afore.  Let  her  come  now !  "  His  voice  was  all  but  inaudible,  and 
the  Rector's  words  had  been  lost  upon  him. 

The  deaf  old  man  had  done  his  errand  well.  The  daughter  of 
the  little  roadside  inn,  quicker  of  foot  than  he,  came  bringing 
water,  and,  what  was  needed  too,  brandy.  Speech  came  again 
after  a  mouthful,  swallowed  with  difficulty. 

"  Am  I  a  bad  sight,  master  ?  Let  the  lassie  come  1  Never  you 
fear  for  her!  She's  used  to  her  Daddy."  He  spoke  so  naturally, 


612  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

all  allowance  made  for  pain  resolutely  kept  at  bay,  that  his  only 
hearer — for  the  girl  from  the  inn  heard  nothing — was  quite  at  a 
loss.  A  bald  truth  was  safe  for  the  moment,  though. 

"Lizarann  is  not  here,  Jim.  She  cannot  come  to  you  now." 
The  last  words  almost  said  why  as  well!  Then  both  Jim's  hearers 
heard  what  came  quite  distinctly  from  his  lips :  "  What's  got  the 
lassie,  Master,  my  lassie  ?  I  tell  ye,  I  heard  her  sing  out  *  Pi-lot ! ' 
Aye ! — once  and  again,  '  Pi-lot ! '  when  you  was  coming  across  the 
common  yonder !  " 

But  whether  he  himself  heard  the  only  reply  Athelstan  Taylor 
could  force  his  lips  to — "  Not  with  me,  Jim ;  Lizarann  was  not 
with  me  " — no  one  ever  knew.  For  all  he  said  was,  "  My  little 
lass ! "  and  never  spoke  again. 

His  shattered  body  was  carried  to  old  Margy's  cottage,  but  the 
moment  of  death  was  hard  to  determine.  All  that  came  to  light 
from  the  post-mortem  examination  was  that  the  spine  was  injured 
beyond  all  hope  of  recovery,  and  that  this  was  only  one  of  sev- 
eral injuries,  any  of  which  might  have  caused  death. 

The  windows  of  the  ward  at  the  Nursing  Home  at  Chalk  Cliff 
stand  wide  to  allow  the  sweet  air  from  the  sea  to  come  and  go  at 
will.  All  has  been  done  that  Death  has  left  to  do  for  Lizarann 
Coupland.  Her  end  and  its  cause  are  certified  by  medical  author- 
ity, and  registered  officially,  and  a  little  coffin  has  been  ordered,  in 
which  the  tiny  white  thing,  like  an  image  well  carved  in  alabaster, 
that  Adeline  Fossett  and  her  friend  Miss  Jane  know  is  under  that 
sheet  on  the  bed,  is  to  be  interred  shortly,  as  soon  as  its  Daddy's 
wishes  are  known.  They  never  will  be,  but  neither  lady  knows 
that  yet. 

"  Poor  little  darling ! "  said  Miss  Fossett.  "  Do  you  recollect, 
Jane,  those  very  last  words  she  said  ?  " 

"About  the  Pilot?" 

"  No,  no — after  that.  I  wasn't  sure  you  heard.  I  had  tried 
to  tell  her  what  .  .  .  what  it  was  .  .  .  and  I  couldn't  find 
words.  But  I  fancy  the  little  thing  half  understood,  too.  What 
she  said  was — quite  clearly — '  But  who's  a-going  to  tell  my 
Daddy  ?  "  It  was  so  like  herself.  The  speaker  breaks  down ;  but 
then,  you  see,  she  had  taken  Lizarann  to  her  heart  so  thoroughly 
— was  thinking  she  would  never  have  another  child  she  should 
be  so  fond  of.  Miss  Jane  is  used  to  these  things,  and  affects 
strength. 

"  I  think  it  will  be  ready  for  the  flowers  now,"  she  says,  and  re- 
moves that  sheet.  Yes,  the  handkerchief  round  the  face  may 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  612 

come  away.  The  two  ladies  place  flowers  round  the  little  alabaster 
head.  It  is  the  head,  one  would  say,  of  a  sweet  little  girl,  and 
the  mouth  is  not  too  large  for  beauty  now,  although  that  line  of 
black  is  in  the  lips. 

So  it  came  to  pass  that  neither  Lizarann  nor  her  Daddy  lived 
to  mourn  the  loss  of  the  other.  The  child  was  never  an  orphan, 
and  the  father  only  childless  an  hour  or  so.  And  Lizarann  never 
knew  what  his  employment  had  been,  but  cherished  to  the  last  -an 
untainted  memory  of  those  happy  days  when  she  led  him  home, 
blind  but  otherwise  uninjured,  from  the  honourable  fulfilment  of 
some  mysterious  public  service.  And  yet,  had  she  known,  would 
she  have  have  thought  it  other  than  right?  For,  was  it  not 
Daddy? 


CHAPTER  XLIX 
j  UDITH'S  VAGARIES.    HOW  SHE  BROUGHT  SIR  ALFRED  CHALLIS,  INSENSIBLE, 

TO  ROYD  HALL  IN  A  MOTOR.  A  MESSAGE  PER  MR.  BROWNRIGG  TO 
THE  RECTOR.  HOW  TO  PROBE  THE  MYSTERY.  JUDITH'S  RESERVE. 
PUBLIC  IMPATIENCE.  THE  CHAUFFEUR'S  TESTIMONY 

ROYD  HALL  was  at  its  quietest  that  morning  when  the  young 
man  Samuel  answered  the  bell  from  his  master's  bedroom,  and 
found  the  Baronet  still  in  bed,  at  a  few  minutes  after  nine.  The 
old  gentleman  must  have  dozed  off  again  after  ringing  it,  because 
Samuel  had  to  knock  twice  before  he  said  "  Come  in." 

"I  thought  you  rang,  sir,"  said  Samuel. 

"I  did  ring.  Who  was  that  went  away  in  the  motor  five  min- 
utes ago  ? " 

Samuel  was  not  going  to  admit  that  the  motor  had  been  gone 
a  full  quarter  of  an  hour.  It  would  have  been  disrespectful  to 
suggest  that  his  master  had  been  asleep  unawares,  so  he  accepted 
the  five-minute  estimate.  "I  believe  it  was  Miss  Judith,  sir;  but 
I  couldn't  say,  to  be  certain." 

"  Just  ask.    What  o'clock  is  it? " 

"  It's  gone  nine,  some  minutes,  sir." 

"  This  coffee's  cold  .  .  .  never  mind !  .  .  . '  I  suppose  I  went 
to  sleep  again.  .  .  .  Oh,  Samuel!  ..."  Samuel,  departing, 
paused.  "  See  that  the  cold  douche  is  cold.  It  was  neither  one 
thing  nor  the  other  yesterday." 

"  Sure  to  be  cold,  sir,  now !  Because  both  the  other  gentlemen's 
run  it  on."  To  those  acquainted  with  the  heating  gear  of  bath- 
rooms the  way  the  old  supply  proves  lukewarm,  and  nothing  brac- 
ing comes  to  pass,  is  well  known.  The  Baronet  referred  to  it  again 
as  he  met  Samuel  returning  on  his  way  to  the  bath.  Was  he  sure 
it  was  cold?  Yes,  Samuel  was;  and  that  was  Miss  Judith,  he 
found,  that  had  gone  off  in  the  motor,  after  breakfasting  early  in 
her  own  room.  As  witness  Mr.  Elphinstone  and  Miss  Judith's 
maid  Tilley. 

Sir  Murgatroyd  never  wondered  much  at  anything  his  family 
did.  He  had  a  beautiful  faith  that  everything  was  all  right  al- 
ways, and  asked  few  or  no  questions.  Still,  he  would  wonder  a 
little,  tentatively,  at  rare  intervals.  Only  he  strained  at  gnats  and 

614 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  615 

swallowed  camels.  This  time  he  swallowed  the  camel  of  Judith's 
early  departure  after  a  solitary  breakfast.  That  was  all  right — 
it  was  some  appointment  with  the  Duchess,  "or  something."  But 
he  strained  at  the  gnat  of  her  having  left  her  little  attendant  be- 
hind. He  had  a  superstition  that  the  absence  of  any  two  per- 
sons, known  to  be  together,  was  never  a  thing  to  cause  anxiety; 
but  he  was  liable  to  fidgeting  about  any  of  his  family  unac- 
counted for,  if  he  supposed  them  to  be  alone.  There  may  be  other 
people  like  him. 

It  was  this  superstition  that  caused  Sir  Murgatroyd  to  say  to 
Lady  Arkroyd — through  a  door  between  their  rooms  that  he  opened 
on  purpose,  having  become  aware  of  the  departure  of  her  lady- 
ship's maid — "  What  has  Judith  gone  out  so  early  for  ? "  To 
which  the  reply  was :  "  You  must  speak  plainer.  I  can't  hear  you 
while  you  shave."  For  during  shaving  the  shaver's  attention  can- 
not be  fully  given  to  speech,  owing  to  the  interdependence  of  razor, 
eye,  and  jaw  in  a  delicate  relation  to  one  another,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  care  needed  to  preserve  a  soapless  mouth. 

So  Sir  Murgatroyd  wound  up  his  shave  before  he  spoke  again, 
adding  to  his  first  question  the  words,  "  In  the  motor." 

"  How  do  you  know  she  went  in  the  motor  ? " 

"  Samuel  said  so.    Besides,  I  heard  it  go." 

"I  suppose  I  was  asleep.  .  .  .  Oh  no! — I  can't  account  for 
Judith's  vagaries.  She  goes  her  own  way.  I  suppose  she's  taken 
the  child  with  her — her  maid,  I  mean  ? " 

"Why,  no,  she  hasn't!     That's  just  it.  ..." 

"I  didn't  mean  "that.  I  meant  that  if  she  hadn't,  Cintilla 
would  know."  That  is  to  say,  her  ladyship  washed  her  hands  of 
any  complicity  in  the  Bart.'s  superstition  spoken  of  above.  She 
always,  in  talking  of  her  husband,  to  the  Duchess  for  instance,  af- 
fected a  Spartan  stolidity;  saying  that  no  one  who  did  not  know 
him  as  she  did  would  ever  suspect  Murgatroyd  of  being  such  an 
hysterical  character. 

Nevertheless,  she  felt  curiosity  about  Judith,  and  bade  Mrs. 
Cream,  her  own  lady's-maid,  summon  Cintilla  to  give  evidence. 
Only  first  she  closed  the  door  into  her  husband's  room,  not  to  be 
open  to  any  imputation  of  hysteria.  The  Baronet  accepted  his 
exclusion  the  more  readily  that  he  had  just  rung  for  Samuel.  For 
his  relation  towards  that  young  man,  who  was  officially  his  valet, 
was  that  he  allowed  him  to  help  him  on  with  his  coat  as  soon  as  he 
himself  was  otherwise  complete.  He  had  to,  or  Samuel  wouldn't 
have  been  his  valet. 

It  was  nearly  a  quarter  to  ten  when  her  ladyship  said  to  her 


616  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

son-in-law  and  Mr.  Brownrigg,  the  only  guest  outside  the  family, 
that  we  were  frightfully  late  at  breakfast.  She  said  it  on  the  long 
terrace  the  breakfast-room  opens  on,  where  the  two  gentlemen  had 
been  for  some  time  wondering  whether  they  were  to  have  any.  A 
peacock  shrieked  a  condemnation  of  late  breakfast;  and  the  Bar- 
onet, appearing  last,  took  the  sins  of  the  congregation  on  his 
shoulders.  His  lateness  eclipsed  all  previous  lateness. 

But  he  must  needs  make  matters  worse;  for  after  communica- 
tions about  Sibyl,  and  record  of  her  husband's  conviction  that 
that  young  lady  would  pay  attention  to  her  medical  adviser,  and 
not  appear  at  breakfast,  he  inquired  about  Judith's  escapade,  as  a 
Baronet  inquires  when  he  really  wants  to  know,  not  as  mere  pass- 
ing chat.  To  which  her  ladyship  replied,  as  one  whose  patience 
is  tried  by  an  inopportune  husband :  "  There,  my  dear,  Judith  is  all 
right  if  you'll  only  leave  her  alone.  I  know  all  about  her.  She's 
gone  to  go  somewhere  with  Thyringia,  and  won't  be  back  till  I 
don't  know  when.  Now  don't  hinder,  and  do  let's  have  break- 
fast. .  .  .  No,  Elphinstone,  don't  sound  the  gong  on  my  ac- 
count. We's  all  here.  I  do  hate  that  banging."  For  her  husband, 
the  fidget,  had  suggested  absurdly  that  perhaps  Judith  was  back, 
and  didn't  know  breakfast  was  ready.  "Besides,  she  had  break- 
fasted, anyhow !  "  adds  her  ladyship. 

Lord  Felixthorpe  has  a  word  of  illumination  for  the  Baronet, 
who  acquiesced  in  the  will  of  a  senior  officer.  It  causes  him  to 
recur  to  the  subject  again,  saying,  "Frank  says  Judith  asked  for 
the  car  yesterday  ..."  and  to  be  again  extinguished  with  an  im- 
patient, "My  dear! — do  you  suppose  I  don't  know  all  about  it?" 
from  her  ladyship. 

When  that  scanty  gathering  of  four  persons  sat  down  to  break- 
fast at  the  table  where  last  year  this  story  told  of  so  large  an  as- 
semblage, Royd  Park  and  mansion  alike  seemed  a  haven  of 
serenest  peace,  sheltered  from  impact  with  the  outer  world,  and 
unconscious  of  its  turmoil.  Every  sound  of  living  creatures  was 
as  good  as  silence — articulate  with  its  denials  of  discord.  Even  the 
peacock's  screech  xipon  the  lawn  fell  in  with  the  music  of  the  wood- 
doves  in  the  beech-woods — just  a  high  staccato  note;  no  more! — 
and  the  gobble  of  a  turkey  from  the  stable-yard,  across  the  big 
red  wall  there,  was  modulated  to  its  place  as  an  instrument  the 
composer  should  not  use  too  freely,  though  full  of  spirit.  A 
million  undertones  of  insects;  a  perspective  of  scattered  voices 
afar,  each  fainter  than  the  last;  the  sound  of  the  manger-chain 
of  a  horse  in  the  groom's  hands — all  agreed  that  whatever  that 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  617 

railway-whistle  might  mean  about  the  world  a  league  and  more 
away,  here  in  this  sacred  enclosure  was  peace — peace  guaranteed 
by  a  bygone  peace  of  vanished  years,  and  a  security  of  entail. 
Peace  without  end,  Amen! 

So  much  so  that  when  the  motor-trumpet  was  suddenly  audible, 
but  unmistakably,  beyond  the  Park  Gate  on  the  road  from  the 
Tillage,  each  of  the  four  at  breakfast  looked  at  some  other,  and 
said — there  it  was!  But  they  were  undisturbed  in  their  minds, 
and  gave  various  consideration  to  Yorkshire  ham  and  filleted  plaice 
and  potted  beef  and  Keiller,  and  all  that  one  associates  with  clean 
damask  and  steaming  urns.  The  Baronet  only  said,  with  ap- 
parent sense  of  relief :  "  I  thought  she  could  hardly  have  gone  for 
the  whole  day."  To  which  his  wife  replied :  "  Oh,  my  dear,  how 
funny  you  are !  Don't  you  know  Judith  ? "  And  then  they  talked 
current  topics  of  the  day — Raisuli  and  Employer's  Liability. 

The  motor-trumpet  close  at  hand,  and  wheels!  Now  we  shall 
know.  But  not  so  soon  that  we  need  leave  Morocco  for  a  mo- 
ment. And  Mr.  Brownrigg  -will  take  half  a  cup  more  coffee. 

What  is  that,  Elphinstone?  May  Mr.  Elphinstone  speak  to  her 
ladyship?  He  may;  so  he  does,  in  an  undertone.  Her  ladyship 
says,  "  I'll  come,"  and  then  to  Mr.  Brownrigg,  "  The  milk's  be- 
side you,"  and  follows  the  butler  from  the  room.  All  the  three 
men  look  at  each  other.  "  Something  wrong !  "  says  Lord  Felix- 
thorpe.  He  and  the  Baronet  look  the  inquiry  at  one  another, 
"  Ought  we  not  to  follow  ? "  and  both  answer,  "  Yes !  "  at  once, 
aloud.  Mr.  Brownrigg  neglects  his  coffee  and  follows,  looking 
concerned  and  apprehensive. 

There  is  a  lobby  between  the  dining-room  and  the  entrance-hall 
to  the  house,  and  her  ladyship  meets  them  in  it,  returning.  She 
says  to  her  husband :  "  Oh,  my  dear ! — you  will  have  to  come, 
about  this."  She  is  looking  ashy  white,  and  when  she  has  spoken 
sinks  down  on  a  wall-seat  in  a  recess,  saying :  "  Oh  dear !  Do  go 
out  and  see."  She  is  quite  overcome  by  something. 

A  new  identity  comes  suddenly  on  Sir  Murgatroyd.  "  See  to 
her,  Frank,"  he  says.  "Is  Mrs.  Cream  there — yes? — See  to  your 
mistress,  Cream."  And  goes  out. 

The  butler  is  just  beyond  the  lobby,  and  the  firm  voice  of  the 
Baronet  is  audible  above  his  terrified  undertone.  "  Who  is 
it?  ...  Sir  Alfred  Challis?  .  .  .  Badly?"  The  speaker 
then  passes  out  of  hearing,  going  to  the  entrance-hall. 

Mrs.  Cream  has  come,  and  finds  that  her  mistress  has  not  fainted 
away,  though  not  far  short  of  it.  Her  ladyship  rallies,  saying  to 
her  son-in-law :  "  Never  mind  me,  Frank ! "  Whereupon  Lord 


618  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Felixthorpe  says:  "You'll  excuse  me,  Brownrigg,  but  I  must  see 
to  my  wife.  She'll  be  frightened  if  I  don't."  And  goes  three 
steps  at  a  time  up  a  side-staircase,  leaving  Mr.  Brownrigg  embar- 
rassed, and  feeling  in  the  way. 

When  Sir  Murgatroyd  set  foot  outside  his  house,  the  first  thing 
he  saw  was  the  face  of  his  daughter,  still  seated  in  the  car,  sup- 
porting the  head  of  the  man  who  was  with  her,  but  shrinking  from 
it,  covered  as  it  was  with  some  shawl  or  cloth,  in  terror.  The 
first  words  he  heard,  above  the  drumming  beat  of  the  stationary 
car's  machinery  and  the  hysterical  excitement  of  the  chauffeur, 
dismounted  from  his  seat,  were  a  relief  to  him.  His  daughter, 
at  any  rate,  was  uninjured,  or  only  shaken  at  the  worst.  "I  am 
not  the  least  hurt,"  she  said,  with  perfect  self-command,  though 
in  a  bewildered,  stony  way.  Her  dress  was  not  soiled  or  seriously 
disordered,  so  she  could  not  have  been  thrown  from  the  car. 

His  hearers  at  first  thought  M.  Louis  incoherent.  "  C'etait  la 
fuute  do  ce  sacre  aveugle — qui  m'y  trouvera  a  redire — moi? 
Qu'ai-je  pu  f aire,  moi  ? — c'est  1'arbre  du  f rein  qui  m'a  trompe.  J'ai 
tire  la  manivelle — oui ! — et  elle  m'a  trompe.  Peste  soit  de  cet 
aveugle.  ..."  And  so  on.  He  was  understood  by  no  one. 

"  Get  this  man  out  of  the  way ;  he's  no  use.  Where's  Bullett  ? " 
Thus  the  Baronet.  "Now,  Elphinstone,  get  that  deck-chair — the 
long  one,  you  know — look  sharp  about  it !  "  Elphinstone  departed, 
as  Bullett,  the  model  groom,  came  running.  "  The  roan,  in  the 
dogcart,"  said  his  master ;  and  then :  "  Yes,  my  dear,  you  shall  tell 
me  directly."  For  Judith  was  beginning:  "It  has  not  been  my 
fault.  ..."  She  was  speaking  like  a  woman  in  a  dream,  or 
one  half  waking  from  one. 

Her  father  only  glanced  at  the  white  face  with  the  blood  on  it, 
then  covered  it  again.  "  He  might  be  able  to  get  some  brandy 
down,"  said  he.  He  stood  with  his  finger  on  Challis's  pulse  till  it 
came,  and  then  tried  to  get  him  to  swallow  some,  but  without  suc- 
cess. "  We  must  get  him  in,"  he  said.  "  Where's  Frank  ? " 
Samuel  testified  that  his  lordship  was  just  coming  downstairs.  The 
fact  was  that  his  lordship,  although  his  solicitude  for  his  wife 
had  been  appreciated,  had  been  told  not  to  be  absurd,  but  to  go 
away  and  make  himself  useful. 

He  arrived  just  as  the  long  deck-chair  was  brought — one  such 
as  one  sees  on  passenger  boats  for  India  and  China — and  assisted 
in  transporting  the  man  who  lay  absolutely  insensible  on  it  to  the 
room  he  had  occupied  when  he  had  visited  the  house  as  a  guest — 
the  room  where  he  missed  that  postscript  of  Marianne's,  and  prob- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  619 

ably  sowed  the  seeds  of  all  this  mischief.  It  was  easy  for  three 
to  carry  the  chair — one  on  either  side  and  one  behind — so  the 
Baronet  left  it  to  his  son-in-law  and  Elphinstone  and  Samuel,  and 
went  to  speak  to  Bullett,  who  had  just  arrived  with  the  dogcart 
On  his  way,  coming  from  the  lobby,  he  met  Mr.  Brownrigg,  look- 
ing horribly  shocked. 

"  Is  it  Challis  ?  "  said  that  gentleman.     The  Baronet  nodded. 

"It's  the  author,"  said  he.  "Is  my  wife  still  there?"  H« 
pointed  to  the  lobby. 

"  She  has  gone  upstairs  to  Lady  Felixthorpe,  I  think.  Can  I 
be  of  any  service  ? " 

"  A  thousand  thanks !  I  don't  know  of  anything.  .  .  .  Yes,  I 
do,  though.  My  groom  is  just  going  to  bring  the  doctor.  Will 
you  ride  with  him  and  call  at  the  Rectory? — tell  Taylor  of  this, 
and  get  him  to  come  at  once.  He  and  Mr.  Challis — Sir  Alfred 
Challis  I  should  say — were  great  friends.  He'll  come." 

"I  will  go  with  pleasure,"  said  Mr.  Brownrigg.  He  went  with 
pleasure,  evidently.  It  is,  of  course,  a  great  satisfaction  to  be  of 
use  in  any  painful  crisis. 

Sir  Murgatroyd,  as  he  turned  to  the  entrance-door  again,  met 
Judith,  who  was  accompanied  by  her  little  maid,  terrified  beyond 
measure,  but  behaving  well.  She  gave  an  inanimate  face  to  her 
father  to  kiss,  saying  collectedly,  but  in  the  same  stony  way: 
"  There  really  is  no  occasion  for  anxiety  about  me.  I  am  perfectly 
safe.  Only  don't  ask  me  to  talk  about  it  now."  Her  father  fol- 
lowed her  in  silence  to  the  door  of  her  room,  when  she  turned  and 
spoke  again,  after  a  visible  effort  that  failed.  "  Is  he  killed?  "  she 
said,  forcing  the  word  out. 

"  Oh  no ! — no,  no ! — no  such  thing !  Stunned — contused — that 
sort  of  thing!  I've  sent  Bullett  for  Pordage.  I  should  have  sent 
the  car,  but  Monsieur  Louis  isn't  in  a  state  to  manage  it.  There 
would  have  been  another  accident.  .  .  .  What  ? " 

"  Tell  them — mamma  and  Sibyl — not  to  disturb  me.  I  will  tell 
you  after.  .  .  .  No!  When  the  doctor  has  seen  him,  tell  my 
little  maid  here.  She  will  bring  me  word."  And  then  Judith, 
whose  beauty  had  lost  nothing  by  the  shock  she  has  sustained — if 
anything,  the  reverse — vanishes  into  her  room,  and  her  father 
hears  the  key  in  the  lock  turned  significantly.  In  the  old  Baronet's 
look  now,  roused  as  he  is  from  his  easy-going  homeliness,  and  with 
a  certain  resolve  growing  on  him,  one  sees  that  that  beauty  is  not 
inherited  from  her  mother  alone.  He  goes  straight  to  the  room 
where  the  injured  man  lies,  still  insensible  and  motionless,  still 
with  a  low  pulse  that  neither  gains  nor  loses.  The  doctor  cannot 


620  IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

be  very  long,  if  Bullett  finds  him  at  home.     His  practice  is  to  re- 
main at  home  in  the  morning. 

"  Do  you  know  anything  of  all  this  ?  "  Sir  Murgatroyd  asks  the 
question  of  his  wife  and  younger  daughter  in  the  bedroom  of  the 
iatter,  where  he  has  found  them,  white  and  frightened — talking  in 
a  nervous  undertone,  but  quickly,  and  as  folk  talk  who  can  tell 
things. 

"  She  has  been  seeing  him.     Sibyl  says  so." 

"Seeing  Challis?" 

"  Of  course.  But  she  hasn't  spoken  of  him  to  me  for  a  month — 
quite  a  month."  This  was  her  ladyship. 

"  I  told  you  it  would  be  no  use,  madre,"  says  Sibyl.  "  But  you 
wouldn't  listen  to  me." 

"  My  dear — how  unreasonable  you  are !  How  was  it  possible 
for  your  father  and  me  to  allow  it  to  go  on?  You  may  say  what 
you  like,  but  he  is  a  married  man.  ..." 

"  All  I  say  is,  you  made  matters  worse." 

"  Never  mind  that  now !  "  said  the  Baronet.  "  What  I  want  to 
hear  is — how  did  Sib  know  this  was  going  on  ? " 

Sibyl  is  quite  clear  on  that  point.  "  Judith  met  him  in  the 
Park  the  day  before  we  came,  last  month.  Old  Mrs.  Inskip  saw 
them  together,  behaving  like  a  couple  of — like  lovers."  Her  tone 
is  one  of  reprobation  and  disgust.  She  goes  on  to  tell  how  she  had 
interviewed  the  centenarian  on  the  subject,  and  been  fully  enlight- 
ened. 

"That  is  all  at  an  end  now,  anyhow."  So  says  the  Baronet, 
but  when  his  wife  says  "  Why  ? "  he  does  not  answer,  but  goes  on 
as  to  another  point  reflectively.  "Judith  must  have  met  him  on 
her  way  to  Thanes.  .  .  .  Where  did  he  join  her — this  morning, 
I  mean?" 

Both  ladies  strike  a  new  clue.  "Was  she  going  to  Thanes  at 
all?"  And  Sibyl  adds:  "I  don't  believe  she  was." 

"You  said  you  knew  she  was,  Therese,"  says  Sir  Murgatroyd, 
addressing  his  wife  by  her  name — a  thing  that  always  means,  with 
him,  a  definite  attitude  of  some  sort.  She  is  on  her  mettle  directly, 
for  expostulation  or  defence. 

"  My  dear,  I  never  said  anything  of  the  sort.  She  talked  yester- 
day of  going  to-day,  and,  of  course,  I  supposed  she  had.  That 
little  girl  of  hers  only  said  she  said  she  might  not  be  back  to  lunch." 
Her  ladyship  exonerates  herself  at  some  length,  denying  what  she 
had  said  plainly  an  hour  before  at  breakfast. 

Her  husband  treats  the  point  as  an  open  one,  to  avoid  indefinite 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  621 

discussion  of  it.  "I  see,"  he  says.  "It  was  only  your  inference. 
I  wonder  if  that  crazy  French  chap  has  come  to  his  senses.  It's 
no  use  my  talking  to  him.  I  can't  understand  three  words  he 
says."  Then,  at  Sibyl's  suggestion,  he  went  away  to  his  son-in- 
law,  who  was  still  with  the  injured  man,  to  get  him  to  interview 
the  bewildered  chauffeur,  and  see  what  could  be  made  of  his  testi- 
mony. During  Lord  Felixthorpe's  absence  he  remained  by  Chal- 
lis,  still  perfectly  insensible  on  the  bed,  but  apparently  only 
stunned,  like  a  man  in  a  deep  sleep.  He  breathed  regularly,  and 
though  his  pulse  dragged  a  little,  it  was  quite  steady.  Sir  Mur- 
gatroyd  felt  only  moderate  uneasiness  about  him.  He  had  himself 
been  thrown  from  his  horse  in  the  hunting-field,  and  remained  in- 
sensible till  next  day. 

Lord  Felixthorpe  returned.  The  chauffeur's  account  of  the 
thing,  now  that  his  mind  was  more  settled,  was  that,  in  order  to 
avoid  a  collision  with  a  man  in  the  road,  he  had  swerved  at  a 
sharp  corner.  Challis  started  to  his  feet  at  the  moment,  and  was 
thrown  over  the  edge  of  the  car,  falling  on  his  head  in  the  road. 
"  Mademoiselle  " — so  ran  M.  Louis'  testimony — "  etait  terriblement 
epouvantee,  mais  elle  ne  s'est  pas  evanouie,"  Lord  Felixthorpe 
translated,  for  the  benefit  of  the  Baronet.  "  Alors,"  said  M.  Louis, 
"  nous  avons  souleve  le  corps,  nous  deux,  dans  1'automobile,  et 
Mademoiselle  m'a  crie — en  avant,  vite,  vite !  Et  moi,  j'ai  retourne 
vite,  vite !  Qu'est  ce  qu'on  aurait  voulu  de  plus  ? "  Questioned 
as  to  where  Challis  had  got  into  the  car,  he  replied — at  the  Park 
Gate;  as  to  what  he  understood  its  destination  to  be,  that  he  did 
not  know  anything  except  that  it  was  about  forty  miles  off,  but 
that  Monsieur  had  a  map  with  the  route  marked;  as  to  when  Miss 
Arkroyd  had  requisitioned  the  car,  that  she  had  spoken  about  it 
to  him  overnight.  Milord  had  instructed  him  that  it  would  not 
be  required  during  the  day,  as  he  himself  should  monter  a  cheval, 
and  Miladi  would  remain  at  home.  It  was  to  be  at  Made- 
moiselle's disposal,  or  Miladi  Arkroyd's.  "  Effectivement,"  said  he, 
in  an  injured  tone,  "  j'ai  suivi  mes  renseignements,  et  je  ne  suis 
pas  a  blamer."  His  lordship  had  then  explained  to  him  that  he 
need  not  be  so  touchy;  no  one  was  blaming  him.  There  was  an- 
other point.  Who  was  the  man  who  caused  the  car  to  swerve,  and 
was  he  hurt?  Monsieur  Louis  replied  with  the  Frenchest  of 
shrugs,  "  Mais  je  ne  sais  pas !  Comment  voulez-vous  que  je  sache  ? 
— quelque  vagabond — quelque  mendiant !  "  He  turned  the  con- 
versation to  the  damage  done  .to  a  tyre. 

Had  Lord  Felixthorpe  heard  the  chauffeur's  words  on  his  first 
arrival,  a  suspicion  he  now  felt  that  M.  Louis  was  keeping  some- 


622  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

thing  back  would  have  been  greatly  strengthened.  Sir  Murgatroyd 
may  have  noticed  the  discrepancy,  but  he  said  nothing  at  the  time. 
His  only  remark  was,  "  We  shall  know  more  of  this  soon." 

Presently  Lord  Felixthorpe  said:  "It  certainly  does  occur  to 
me  that  my  sister-in-law  would  be  able  to  contribute  some  valuable 
information,  and  I  do  not  understand  that  she  is  any  the  worse 
for  this  mishap,  fright  apart.  Why  should  we  not.  .  .  .  ? "  He 
stopped  short;  for  his  father-in-law  had  touched  him  with  his 
finger,  saying  only,  "  Frank ! "  The  manner  of  it  made  him  end 
with,  "  Why — do  you  know  anything  ?  " 

"  When  was  that  Bill  to  go  into  Committee — the  Deceased  Wife's 
Sister — you  know  ?  " 

"What's  to-day?  Saturday?  It  was  yesterday,  Friday. 
Why  ?  .  .  .  Do  you  suppose  .  .  .  ? " 

"  It  may  have  something  to  do  with  this — mind  you,  I  only  say 
may  have !  .  .  .  I  suppose  the  Times  has  come ?  " 

"  I'll  see."  He  went  out  and  spoke  to  Elphinstone  over  the 
great  staircase,  and  returned.  "  I've  told  him  to  bring  the  papers 
here." 

"  Yes — here  we  are !  "  said  the  Baronet,  five  minutes  after,  con- 
trolling an  outspread  sheet  of  last  night's  Debates.  He  went  on, 
reading  scrapwise:  "'Lord  Shaftesbury  moved  amendment  to  re- 
move from  Bill  retrospective  character  .  .  .  very  indistinctly 
heard  in  gallery  ...  no  real  hardship  would  be  inflicted  by 
amendment  .  .  .  persons  who  had  contracted  these  marriages 
fully  conscious  of  legal  consequences  involved '  .  .  .  hm-hum ! " 
and  so  on.  "Where's  the  end  of  it?  .  .  .  oh — here!  'Amend- 
ment withdrawn.'  Yes,  Frank,  that  may  have  something  to  do 
with  it — may  have  a  great  deal !  " 

"  I'm  not  sure  that  I  follow.  Has  it  to  do  with  .  .  .  ? "  He 
dropped  his  voice,  and  looked  towards  the  motionless  figure  on  the 
bed. 

"  Of  course  it  has  .  .  .  he  won't  hear — you  needn't  be  uneasy. 
I  was  just  like  that.  .  .  .  Well! — we'll  talk  outside  if  you 
like.  .  .  .  Yes,  look  at  this,  Frank :  Prorogation  is  next  Wednes- 
day, when  this  Bill  will  receive  the  Royal  Assent,  and  become  law. 
Until  next  Wednesday  at  midday,  or  thereabouts,  Challis's  wife 
isn't  his  wife,  and  any  woman  he  marries  on  Monday  or  Tuesday 
is.  He  couldn't  even  be  convicted  of  bigamy  unless  his  first  mar- 
riage was  held  legal,  and  that  would  be  rather  discourteous  to  the 
Royal  Assent  on  Wednesday.  Now  do  you  see  ? " 

"  Surely  you  never  can  imagine  ..." 

"Well  I" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  623 

"  Surely  you  never  can  imagine  that  Sir  Challis  and  Ju  were 
going  to  make  a  runaway  match  of  it,  to  outwit  the  action  of  this 
Bill  .  .  ." 

"I  can  only  see  this,"  says  the  Baronet:  "that  if  they  did  not 
do  so,  they  were  losing  the  only  chance  they  had  left  of  making 
an  honourable  match  of  any  sort  or  kind.  Isn't  that  the  doctor  ?  " 

It  is  the  footstep  of  the  roan,  unmistakable,  and  the  wheels  of 
the  dogcart,  at  speed.  It  is  poor  little  Lizarann's  friend,  Dr. 
Sidrophel.  But  all  his  old  look  has  left  him — a  look  as  though  he 
was  born  to  be  amused,  and  found  his  patients  diverting — as  he 
comes  quickly  to  Challis's  room,  meeting  the  two  gentlemen  on  the 
way,  to  whom  he  speaks  very  little.  He  nods  once  or  twice,  in  re- 
ply to  a  brief  abstract  of  the  accident,  saying  only,  "Let's  have  a 
look  at  him ! "  He  finds  time  to  say  that  the  Rector  could  not 
come,  but  would  come  later.  There  was  a  good  deal  to  be  done. 
The  Baronet  did  not  seem  to  understand  this. 

The  household  has  fought  shy  of  touching  an  insensible  patient, 
pending  a  doctor  on  the  way,  especially  as  there  is  no  visible 
haemorrhage.  The  blood  from  a  cut  on  the  temple  was  not  renewed 
when  the  face  was  wiped  with  a  sponge  on  his  first  arrival  at  the 
house.  The  doctor  makes  a  very  rapid  examination.  "You  wish 
him  to  remain  here,  Sir  Murgatroyd  ?  "  he  says. 

"To  remain  here?     Of  course  I  do." 

"  Then  I  must  have  his  clothes  off  first.  The  cut's  nothing  on 
the  forehead.  That  can  wait." 

The  coat  must  be  sacrificed,  but  it  can't  be  helped.  Slit  up  the 
sleeves,  and  off  with  it!  Better  than  jarring  him  about  in  his 
present  state.  Once  wardrobe-saving  is  discarded,  it  is  easy  work 
to  get  the  author  in  trim  for  a  careful  overhauling.  No  bones 
broken,  is  the  verdict.  All  the  worse !  His  head  took  most  of  his 
weight,  and  bore  the  shock.  A  broken  knee-joint  might  have  spared 
his  brain.  As  it  is,  Dr.  Pordage  seems  to  think  the  net  volumes 
may  come  slower  in  the  future.  Besides,  you  never  can  tell  at 
first  about  the  spine  in  cases  of  this  sort. 

For  the  present,  concession  must  be  made  to  treatment.  It  never 
does  to  do  absolutely  nothing.  So  let's  have  mustard  and  hot 
water  to  the  feet,  and  ammonia  to  the  nostrils,  and  try  to  get  a 
little  brandy  down  his  throat.  But  quiet  is  the  thing.  Presently, 
all  that  seems  feasible  has  been  done,  and  quiet  is  to  have  its  op- 
portunity. Still,  quite  insensible! 

Ought  not  Mrs\  Challis,  or  Lady  Challis,  whichever  she  is,  to  be 
communicated  with?  The  question  is  a  joint-stock  one  in  which 
Lady  Arkroyd  and  Sibyl  have  shares,  having  come  into  conference. 


624  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Of  course,  they  were  not  on  terms — her  ladyship  says  this — but  is 
that  our  concern? 

"I  shouldn't  put  it  on  that,  Lady  Arkroyd,"  says  the  doctor. 
"He'll  probably  be  conscious  in  a  few  hours.  Better  not  alarm 
her  needlessly.  If  he  continues  unconscious  for  twenty-four  hours 
,.  .  .  why,  then  we  might  think  about  it.  But  I  don't  suppose  him 
to  be  in  any  danger."  The  speaker's  serious  manner,  unlike  him- 
self, seemed  out  of  keeping  with  his  light  estimate  of  Challis's 
danger. 

"  We  haven't  got  her  address,  so  we  can't,  and  there's  no  use 
talking  about  it.  Unless  Judith  knows.  Only  it  seems  she's  not 
to  be  got  at."  This  is  Sibyl,  not  without  asperity. 

"How  is  Miss  Arkroyd?"  says  the  doctor,  whose  emphasis  on 
the  verb  means,  "  I  am  conscious  that  I  ought  to  have  asked  be- 
fore, and  my  doing  it  now  is  rather  a  formality."  Lady  Arkroyd 
testifies  that  Judith  is  in  her  room  lying  down,  but  was  all  right 
when  she  spoke  to  her  through  the  door — oh  yes! — she  seemed  per- 
fectly right,  but  had  locked  herself  in,  and  wanted  to  be  quiet. 
The  Baronet  says,  to  his  wife  only,  "  Perhaps  we  had  better  leave 
her  alone,  Therese."  And  Therese  replies,  "  Oh,  I'm  sure  I  don't 
want  to  meddle  with  her."  Impatience  with  Miss  Arkroyd  is  in 
the  air.  She  is  credited  with  being  the  underlying  cause  of  all  this 
disturbance. 

There  is  a  surprise  in  the  bush  for  her  father;  only  half- 
informed,  so  far.  For  the  doctor,  departing,  pauses  and  says 
gravely,  hesitatingly:  "I  believe — but  I  don't  know — that  the  in- 
quest will  be  on  Monday,  or  Tuesday." 

"The  inquest!— Why  inquest?  What  inquest?"  The  Baronet 
is  absolutely  in  the  dark  about  everything  but  Challis's  mishap. 
His  wife,  better  informed  by  the  groom  during  the  doctor's  visit 
to  his  patient,  touches  him  on  the  arm,  saying,  "My  dear,  Dr. 
Pordage  is  referring  to  the  man  ..."  and  falters. 

"  There  was  a  man  killed,"  says  Sibyl  abruptly.  "  We  supposed 
you  knew." 

"  A  man  killed !     Good  God !    I  knew  nothing.     What  man  ?  " 

Sibyl's  husband  overhears,  and  comes  quickly.  "  What  is  that 
about  a  man  killed  ?  "  he  says.  He  also  is  completely  taken  aback. 

Then  Lady  Arkroyd  says  again,  "  We  thought  you  knew."  And 
the  doctor  follows,  saying  collectedly,  "  Jim  Coupland,  the  man  at 
the  Abbey  Well,  was  struck  by  the  motor-car  and  killed.  The  Rec- 
tor found  him  lying  dead  in  the  road.  That  is  why  Mr.  Taylor  did 
not  accompany  me.  He  will  be  here  shortly,  and  will  tell  you  more 
than  I  can." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  625 

Sir  Murgatroyd  gazes  from  one  to  the  other,  shocked  and  speech- 
less. Lord  Felixthorpe,  nearly  as  much  concerned,  says  below  his 
breath,  "  That  miscreant  Rossier  never  said  a  word  to  me  of  this." 
But  he  is  preoccupied  and  ill-at-ease  about  his  wife,  who  will  be 
none  the  better  just  now  for  upsets  and  tragic  surprises.  He 
persuades  her  to  go  back  to  the  quiet  of  her  room,  in  spite  of  her 
protests  that  he  is  nonsensical,  saying  as  he  goes  away  with  her, 
"  We'll  have  that  French  scoundrel  up  when  I  come  back.  I  won't 
be  three  minutes."  But  he  was  a  little  longer,  and  when  he  re- 
turned, the  doctor,  who  was  wanted  elsewhere,  was  on  his  way 
back.  He  found  his  father-in-law  alone  in  the  library,  sitting  with 
his  head  on  his  hand,  as  though  completely  oppressed  and  stunned 
with  what  he  had  heard.  "  Oh,  Frank,"  said  the  old  gentleman, 
"  this  is  horrible ! "  He  had  made  sure  that  the  patient  upstairs 
\vas  properly  looked  to,  and  had  sat  down  to  rest  and  be  quiet  until 
Athelstan  Taylor's  arrival.  But  the  chauffeur  might  be  sent  for. 

A  female  servant,  told  off  to  mount  guard  over  the  patient,  and 
report  any  change  or  movement,  had  been  at  her  post  about  a 
quarter  of  an  hour,  when  Miss  Arkroyd  opened  the  door  and  came 
into  the  room.  "  Don't  go,  Hetty,"  was  all  she  said.  She  looked 
as  white — so  Hetty  reported  afterwards — as  the  clean  wristband 
that  young  woman  made  use  of  in  illustration.  Also,  her  hair  was 
all  coming  down.  She  stood  at  the  bedside  maybe  a  minute,  maybe 
two — Hetty  couldn't  say — then  touched  the  inanimate  hand  on  the 
coverlid.  "  Oh  no ;  she  never  took  hold,"  said  Hetty.  "  Touched 
and  drew  back  like !  "  Then  she  turned  to  the  girl  and  said,  "  Have 
you  heard  what  the  doctor  said  ? "  rather  as  if  she  took  scanty  in- 
formation for  granted.  "  But,  of  course,  I  could  tell  her  all 
right,"  said  Hetty,  who  had  been  taking  notice.  "  Only  she  didn't 
any  more  than  just  stop  to  hear,  but  went.  My  word! — she  was 
looking  bad." 

She  must  have  slipped  back  quietly  into  her  room  after  this,  tak- 
ing the  young  girl  Cintilla  with  her.  For  when  her  mother,  an 
hour  later,  after  consultation  as  to  the  wisdom  of  the  step,  went  to 
her  door  to  try  again  for  admission,  it  was  opened  by  Cintilla,  and 
Judith's  voice  said,  "  Oh  yes,  come  in ;  I  want  to  hear  what  the 
doctor  said."  But  her  speech  was  so  composed  as  scarcely  to  com- 
ply with  the  show  of  feeling  the  circumstances  demanded,  even  if 
the  runaway  match  idea  was  not  a  well-grounded  one. 

M.  Rossier  did  not  make  a  -good  figure  when  summoned  to  ap- 
pear in  the  library.  He  bristled  and  stood  on  his  defence  at  once, 
instead  of  making,  as  requested,  a  simple  statement  of  his  version 


626  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

of  the  facts.  Perhaps  Sir  Murgatroyd  would  have  done  more 
wisely  not  to  remind  a  witness  under  examination  that  he  himself 
was  a  Justice  of  the  Peace;  it  tended  to  invest  him  with  the 
character  of  a  Juge  d' Instruction,  and  M.  Louis  with  that  of 
"the  accused."  The  latter  was  as  strange  to  the  idea  of  waiting 
for  a  proof  of  guilt  as  the  former  to  that  of  demanding  a  proof  of 
innocence. 

Oh  yes! — there  was  a  man  in  the  road — what  did  M.  Louis 
know?  lie  came  from  a  sen  tier  by  the  roadside.  But,  said  his 
master,  speaking  French  de  rigueur,  as  English  was  not  under- 
stood, "  Get  homme  etait  au  mi-chemin,"  meaning  in  the  middle 
of  the  road.  M.  Louis  misunderstood,  or  pretended  to.  "  J'avais 
passe  le  mi-chemin,"  said  he,  meaning,  apparently,  half-way  to  the 
village.  Then  he  tried  to  assist  by  speaking  English.  "  He  wass 
bloke  ze  hackross,"  and  then  finished  naturally  with,  "  Que  diable 
allait  il  faire  au  milieu  de  la  rue  ? " 

"  Ou — avez — vous — vu — dernierement — cet  homme  ? "  said  the 
Baronet,  a  loud  word  at  a  time,  to  make  sure  of  reaching  that 
strange  organism,  a  foreigner's  brain.  M.  Louis  understood,  any- 
how. 

"  A  peine  l'ai-je  vu !  Je  n'ai  fait  que  jeter  un  coup  d'ceil,  et  pst ! 
— il  est  disparu.  Je  ne  1'ai  pas  cru  blesse.  Pour  moi,  il  n'a  pas 
souffert  la  moindre  egratignure.  Que  voulez-vous?  On  ne  peut 
pas  avoir  1'oeil  a  tout ! "  But  his  speech  was  not  absolutely  con- 
sistent, for  he  added,  "Pourquoi  diable  ne  put-il  s'abriter  sous  la 
haie?"  He  evidently  thought  the  road  belonged  to  the  motor  in- 
terest, and  that  the  world  ought  to  run  for  the  nearest  sheltered 
corner  at  the  sound  of  his  horn. 

Lord  Felixthorpe  endeavoured  to  impress  him  with  the  advisabil- 
ity of  telling  the  truth,  as  a  mere  matter  of  policy.  There  would 
be  a  case  to  go  to  a  Jury,  unless  the  inquest  decided  that  Jim 
Coupland  had  died  by  the  Visitation  of  Providence.  But  M.  Louis 
might  feel  secure  of  fair  treatment;  and,  unless  he  had  sinned 
grossly,  need  be  under  no  apprehension  of  serious  consequences  to 
himself.  As  the  chauffeur  knew  he  had  sinned  grossly,  in  not 
slacking  speed  at  the  curve,  his  apprehensions  continued.  But  he 
seemed  convinced,  when  he  went  away,  that  it  might  be  wisest  to 
eay  the  least  possible  for  the  present. 

"We  must  look  out  sharp,"  said  Sir  Murgatroyd,  "and  make 
sure  the  Coroner's  Jury  is  fairly  chosen.  I  can't  have  any  leniency 
shown  to  County  Families,  Frank.  I'm  inclined  now  towards  see- 
ing what  I  can  make  of  Judith.  I  see  no  use  putting  it  off.  .  .  . 
By-the-bye,  Frank,  what  did  that  story-telling  Mossoo  mean  by 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  627 

talking  about  a  blind  man — avoogle's  blind,  isn't  it? — and  then 
saying  he  hardly  saw  Jim  ?  .   .   .  what?  ..." 

"  I  didn't  hear  him  say  anything  about  a  blind  man." 
"  No,  no — before  you  came — when  he  first  came  back.    He  said 
*  avoogle.' " 

"  I  expect  he  knows  all  about  it.  See  what  Judith  has  to  say !  " 
Sir  Murgatroyd  didn't  seem  at  all  in  a  hurry  for  his  interview 
with  his  daughter.  He  hung  about,  finishing  topics  up.  He 
dropped  his  voice  to  say,  "Poor  Jim!  Taylor  said  he  was  just 
expecting  his  little  girl  back.  And  now  she'll  come  back  and  find 
him  lying  dead." 

"  Ah — the  nice  little  girl,  Lizarann.  Yes — I  had  forgotten  Lizar- 
ann.  Poor  little  woman !  "  For  remember  it  was  this  young  swell 
who  had  made  Lizarann's  acquaintance  near  two  years  since,  in 
Tallack  Street.  Do  you  recollect? — when  William  Rufus  called 
him  Scipio. 


CHAPTER  L 

OF  MARIANNE  AT  BROADSTAIRS,  AND  THE  CONSTRUCTION  OF  A  "DREAD- 
NOUGHT." AND  HOW  SHE  READ  OF  HER  HUSBAND'S  ACCIDENT  ON 
ITS  ARMOUR-PLATES,  AND  AT  ONCE  STARTED  FOR  ROYD.  BUT  SUP- 
POSE THEY  CALLED  HER  "  LADY  CHALLIS  "  I 

MARIANNE  CHALLIS,  or,  as  she  preferred  to  be  called,  Craik,  had 
sentenced  herself  to  an  embittered  life,  and  knew  it.  But  she  had, 
as  we  have  said,  so  much  in  her  of  the  dogged  tenacity  and  venge- 
fulness  of  a  Red  Indian  brave  that  scarcely  any  idea  of  sur- 
render had  ever,  so  far,  entered  her  mind.  Whenever  the  smallest 
suspicion  of  wavering  had  approached  its  outskirts,  during  the 
year  and  a  half  of  her  residence  with  her  mother  at  Broadstairs, 
she  had  at  once  brought  into  the  field  an  auxiliary  force,  the  con- 
solation to  her  conscience  that  she  was,  at  least,  no  longer  "  living 
in  sin  "  with  the  father  of  her  children.  Even  if  her  jealousy  of 
what  she  found  a  satisfaction  in  calling  his  "connection  with" 
Miss  Arkroyd — a  phrase  first  used,  dexterously,  by  Charlotte 
Eldridge — had  been  ill-founded,  which  it  wasn't,  it  would  have 
been  a  misapprehension  to  be  thankful  for,  in  that  it  had  made 
her  alive  to  the  heinousness  of  her  immoral  life,  and  qualified  her 
to  go  before  the  Bar  of  an  Offended  God,  not  only  with  mere  lame 
apologies  for  the  existence  of  her  two  girls,  but  with  a  statement 
of  account,  claiming  payment  of  Joy  over  the  Sinner  that  Re- 
penteth.  Where  would  have  been  the  use  of  pleading,  before  that 
Awful  Throne,  that  she  was  "  only  Kate's  half-sister  "  ? 

This  story  knows  that  accusation  will  be  brought  against  it  of 
"  sneering  "  at  things  sacred ;  but  let  the  accuser  try  to  depict  the 
frame  of  mind  of  this  poor  lady  without  seeming  to  do  so.  Mari- 
anne had  accepted  her  mother's  Choctaw  Deity,  a  creation  of  the 
sullen  vices  of  her  own  mind,  on  the  strength  of  an  assurance  that 
he  was  also  the  God  of  the  man  who  paid,  in  Syria,  the  penalty  of 
the  most  intrepid  and  magnificent  attempt  to  touch  the  hearts  of 
men  the  world  has  ever  known.  Let  him  be  sure  that  when  he  talks 
of  "  things  sacred  "  he  is  really  holding  those  things  sacred  that 
that  man  was  tortured  to  death  for  proclaiming  the  truth  of,  two 
thousand  years  ago,  and  that  he  is  not  exalting  the  comicalities  of 
a  Theologism. 

628 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  629 

But  the  outcome  of  it  all  was  an  embittered  life  for  Marianne. 
And  the  bitterness  was  bound  to  come  out — could  not  be  concealed. 
It  showed  itself  in  severity  towards  her  children  to  some  extent, 
but  very  much  more  in  acrimony  towards  her  mother.  It  was  just 
as  well,  perhaps,  that  the  safety-valve  existed.  The  worthy  old 
lady  would  have  been  quarrelling  with  some  one  else  if  she  had  not 
quarrelled  with  her  daughter ;  so  it  was  all  one  to  her. 

This  old  lady  was  the  soul  of  dissension  and  savage  righteous- 
ness. It  must  not  be  understood  that  what  Bob  called  a  "  regular 
set-to  between  Gran  and  the  Mater "  was  of  daily  occurrence. 
Often  a  week  would  pass  without  a  battle-royal.  But  no  hour 
ever  passed  without  an  exchange  of  shots.  Bob's  reports  to  his 
father  of  the  life  at  Belvedere  Villa,  Broadstairs,  were  highly  col- 
oured, perhaps,  but  they  enabled  the  author  to  picture  to  himself  a 
daily  routine  not  far  from  the  truth.  When  Bob  stated  that  Old 
Gran  was  all  shaky-waky  with  rage  to  begin  with,  and  would 
pucker  up  and  fly  at  a  moment's  notice  if  you  didn't  look  uncom- 
mon sharp,  Challis  accepted  the  first  clause  of  the  indictment  as  a 
false  diagnosis  of  the  tremulousness  of  old  age;  the  second  as 
realistic  poetry;  and  the  condition  precedent  of  immunity  at  the 
end  as  an  admission  that  his  son's  own  attitude  was  not  always 
faultless.  When  that  young  man  said  it  was  "pray,  pray,  pray, 
all  day  long,"  and  he  didn't  see  the  fun,  his  father  perceived  that 
his  meaning  was  that  religious  exercises  were  protracted  beyond 
usage,  for  instance,  of  the  Deanery  at  Inchester;  where,  according 
to  Bob,  it  was  "once  and  done  with."  Besides,  the  Dean  didn't 
snuffle,  and  Old  Gran  did.  Challis  remarked  that  Bob  would 
have  cut  a  poor  figure  as  a  Hindu  Yogi,  and  felt  grateful  in  his 
heart  to  Dean  Tillotson  for  not  snuffling.  It  might  arrest  a  violent 
reaction  on  Bob's  part  against  all  Religion,  Law,  Order,  and  Moral- 
ity. For  Challis  would  not  trust  anyone  but  himself  without  the 
first;  weak  natures,  like  other  people's,  might  lose  touch  with  the 
other  three  as  well,  and  take  to  the  secret  manufacture  of  melinite. 
He  never  suspected  himself  of  a  weak  nature. 

These  illuminations  had  been  thrown  on  Belvedere  Villa  after 
Bob's  first  visit  there,  a  year  since.  This  August  he  was  acquiring 
more  dignified  forms  of  speech,  befitting  a  fifth-form  boy.  But  he 
was  still  capable  of  saying  that  he  had  seen  "  awfully  little  "  of  his 
Governor  these  holidays.  Indeed,  if  he  had  not  gone  with  him  to 
a  place  in  Derbyshire  for  a  week,  he  would  hardly  have  set  eyes  on 
him.  Then  if  his  Governor  was  stopping  on  a  week  at  this  beastly 
little  place — Heaven  knows  why! — why  shouldn't  he?  Why  was 
he  to  go  to  Broadstairs?  However,  he  went.  And  from  Broad- 


630  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

stairs  he  wrote  to  his  Governor,  at  Brideswell-Poulgreave,  Derby, 
saying  that  Gran  was  "  as  bad,  if  not  worse,  than  ever,"  and  pro- 
voked severe  criticism  of  his  English  in  reply.  He  had  his  re- 
venge, though,  for  he  pelted  his  Governor  with  samples  of  the  same 
solecism,  cut  from  current  literature,  till  the  accumulations  became 
quite  formidable. 

It  may  seem  strange,  but  the  story  must  record  it,  that  almost 
the  only  thing  that  gave  poor  Marianne  any  real  pleasure  during 
this  year-and-a-half  in  her  mother's  house  was  the  reading  from 
time  to  time  in  the  newspapers  of  the  literary  successes  of 
"  Titus " ;  for  to  her  he  never  ceased  to  be  Titus.  So  self -con- 
tradictory was  her  frame  of  mind  that,  when  "  Aminta  Torring- 
ton "  made  such  a  sensation  just  after  Christmas,  her  bosom 
swelled  with  pride  over  the  play's  success,  just  as  though  she  herself 
had  been  by  the  author's  side  at  the  fall  of  the  curtain.  Her  curi- 
osity was  intense  to  know  whether  or  not  the  name  of  the  actress 
who  personated  Aminta  was  her  own  or  one  assumed  by  that  de- 
testable woman  to  whom  she  owed  all  her  unhappiness.  "  Silvia 
Berens "  puzzled  her,  because  it  sounded  familiar.  But  not  suf- 
ficiently so  to  be  sure  she  had  known  it  in  those  last  days  she  had 
spent  at  the  Hermitage. 

It  was  a  grievous  vexation  to  have  no  one  she  could  take  into 
her  confidence.  She  would  have  shrunk  from  showing  her  inner 
mind  to  her  mother,  even  if  there  had  been  the  slightest  prospect 
of  the  old  woman  knowing  anything  on  dramatic  or  literary  sub- 
jects; and  when  she  threw  out  a  feeler  to  Charlotte  Eldridge,  that 
lady  irritated  her  by  taking  for  granted  that  the  pleasure  she  had 
expressed  was  a  creditable  impulse  of  generosity,  and  not  spon- 
taneous at  all.  Just  like  Charlotte!  And  all  the  while  her  pleas- 
ure was  a  reality  she  had  a  right  to  indulge  in — a  luxury  she  could 
allow  herself  without  any  weak  concession  to  feelings  she  had 
destined  to  extinction. 

For  the  fact  is  Marianne  had  never  ceased  to  love  the  father  of 
her  children.  Can  a  woman  ever  succeed  in  doing  so,  except  by 
hating  him?  Now,  Choctaw  as  she  was,  she  was  under  no  obliga- 
tion to  detest  her  husband  as  long  as  she  could  fully  gratify  her 
hatred  elsewhere.  Judith  Arkroyd  had  the  full  benefit  of  it — 
drew  the  fire  of  her  batteries  on  herself.  Oh,  the  hypocrisy  of  that 
letter  the  girl  had  the  impertinence  to  write  to  her!  But  she  saw 
through  it.  As  for  Titus,  did  she  not  know  him  well  enough  to 
know  he  would  be  mere  wax  in  the  hands  of  a  designing  woman 
like  that  ?  Oh  yes ! — she  knew  how  to  flatter  him,  no  doubt !  And 
how  to  make  the  best  of  herself,  too.  Charlotte  could  at  least  sym- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  631 

pathize  about  that;  she  knew  the  sort  this  Judith  was!  Indeed, 
Charlotte  had  been  liberal  in  her  realistic  suggestions  about  Judith, 
who  may  have  been  in  some  ways  no  better  than  she  made  her  out, 
but  who  was  certainly  short  of  the  standard  of  depravity  this 
moralist  vouched  for  in  telegraph-girls,  her  betes-noires  in  all  that 
touched  the  purity  of  the  domestic  hearth.  Charlotte's  sidelights 
on  the  Tophet  incident,  as  explained  in  "  that  hypocritical  letter 
from  the  girl  herself,"  would  have  done  credit  to  Paul  de  Kock. 

Chewing  this  cud — or  these  cuds;  which  should  it  be? — would 
take  the  poor  woman  so  perilously  near  a  fit  of  exculpation  of  Titus 
that  she  was  often  forced  to  have  recourse  to  the  old  story  of  their 
consanguinity  to  keep  her  resentment  up  to  the  mark.  Yes! — 
she  would — she  could — go  through  a  mental  operation  technically 
called  "forgiving"  Titus.  But  go  back  to  him?  No!  She  had 
sinned,  all  those  years,  in  ignorance,  and  with  a  false  ideal  of  her 
husband,  who  had  now  fallen  from  his  high  estate.  And  look  you ! 
— it  was  not  only  this  Judith  business.  How  about  that  other 
story?  How  about  that  Steptoe  story,  not  an  hour's  walk  from 
here?  She  found  the  neighbourhood  of  Eamsgate  oppressive  to 
her. 

No — she  could  never  go  back  to  Titus,  whatever  happened.  Not 
even  if  this  Bill  that  was  to  come  into  Parliament  were  to  make 
marriages  like  hers  and  Titus's  lawful  for  the  future.  What  was 
wrong  was  wrong,  and  how  the  House  of  Lords  could  make  it  right 
was  more  than  Marianne  could  understand.  She  wasn't  aware 
that  it  was  the  House  of  Lords  that  originally  made  it  wrong. 

But  if  she  did  her  duty  towards  the  supposed  instructions  of 
Holy  Writ — which  she  did  not  doubt  could  be  found  somewhere,  as 
her  mother  was  so  positive  about  them — she  might  claim  as  a  set- 
off  the  pleasure  of  reading  the  literary  columns  of  the  daily  Press 
in  the  hope  of  coming  on  Titus's  name.  She  did  more  reading  in 
that  year-and-a-half  than  she  had  done  in  all  the  rest  of  her  life 
put  together.  And  as  she  was  not  literate  enough  to  skim,  she 
had  to  plod;  and  plodding  is  slow  work  in  the  columns  of  a 
voluminous  Sunday  paper — the  largest  possible  paper  in  the  small- 
est possible  type.  But  one  does  get  a  lot  for  one's  penny,  whether 
it's  Lloyd's  Weekly,  or  the  Dispatch,  or  the  People;  and  there's 
sure  to  be  all  the  theatrical  news  and  recent  publications,  which- 
ever you  take.  So  Marianne  pored  intently  over  one  or  the  other, 
every  Sunday  afternoon,  on  the  sofa ;  while  her  parent  dipped  into 
sermons,  or  ran  her  eye  through  the  Prayer-book,  now  and  then  look- 
ing at  the  newspaper.  Not,  that  is  to  say,  in  the  mere  cant  sense 
of  the  phrase,  but  glaring  at  it  wolfishly  over  her  own  more 


632  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

legible  type,  with  a  basilisk  eye  to  slay  the  profane  intruder. 
The  presence  of  the  unhallowed  secular  abomination  in  the  house 
on  the  Lord's  Day  was  a  bone  of  contention  between  the  mother 
and  daughter;  but  the  old  lady  had  had  to  give  in,  and  every  Sun- 
day afternoon  saw  strained  relations  in  abeyance,  and  the  tension 
of  a  skin-deep  concord,  that  might  or  might  not  last  until  the 
children  should  be  allowed  down,  and  given  the  obnoxious  thing  to 
make  boats  of. 

On  this  particular  Sunday — the  day  following  the  events  of  last 
chapter — Marianne's  attention  seemed  deeper  and  more  prolonged 
than  usual.  She  had  found  something  that  interested  her.  It  was 
taxing  her  apprehension  severely,  and  she  had  no  one  to  go  to  for 
enlightenment.  But  it  is  not  human  to  accept  exasperation  in 
silence,  and  Marianne  saw  a  prospect  of  relief  in  putting  her 
mother's  uselessness  as  an  informant  on  record.  So  she  said,  as 
though  referring  to  a  matter  of  course,  "I  suppose  it's  no  use 
asking  you  what  these  Parliament  things  mean,"  and  went  on 
reading. 

Few  people  admit  complete  ignorance  in  any  department  without 
a  struggle.  "  Perhaps  I  know  nothing  about  anything,"  said  the 
old  woman,  snarling  meekly.  "  Perhaps  I  know  more  than  you 
choose  to  think  I  know.  Now  snap ! "  These  last  words  claimed 
the  position  of  a  private  reflection  made  by  a  person  of  rare  self- 
restraint  in  a  den  of  mad  dogs.  There  was  nothing  unlike  her 
mother  in  them,  and  Marianne  left  them  unnoticed,  and  con- 
tinued : 

"I  suppose  you  don't  know  what  is  meant  by  'an  amendment 
to  remove  from  the  Bill  its  retrospective  character '  ? "  For  Mari- 
anne had  got  at  the  report  of  the  sitting  of  the  House  of  Lords 
of  two  days  since;  and  though  she  had  kept  herself  uninformed, 
intentionally,  on  the  subject  related  to,  still,  when  she  saw  it  all  in 
print,  her  curiosity  took  the  bit  in  its  teeth,  and  she  read. 

"It  happens  that  you  are  entirely  wrong,  because  it  happens 
that  that  is  just  the  one  thing  I  do  happen  to  know.  But  I  shall 
not  talk  about  it  on  this  day."  This  resolution  lasted  quite  three 
minutes,  when  the  speaker  resumed,  under  a  kind  of  protest  that 
the  little  she  had  to  say  wouldn't  count.  "You  know  perfectly 
well  what  Mr.  Tillingfleet  said  in  his  last  letter  about  this  wicked 
Bill  business." 

"What  did  he  say?" 

"  You  know  perfectly  well." 

"  I  do  not." 

The  self-denying  ordinance  of  Sabbath  silence  became  too  hard 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  633 

to  keep.  The  old  lady  broke  out,  "You  know  perfectly  well  that 
Mr.  Tillingfleet  said  that,  if  this  Bill  was  given  a  retrospective 
character,  you  would  have  to  be  Mr.  Challis's  wife  again,  and  live 
with  him,  whether  you  liked  it  or  not." 

"  I  don't  recollect  that  he  said  any  such  thing.  I  don't  believe 
he  did." 

"You  can  get  his  letter  and  look  at  it,  if  you  doubt  your 
mother's  word  on  Sunday."  This  was  not  an  admission  of  fibs  on 
week-days;  it  referred  to  the  intensification  of  unfiliality  as  a 
Sabbath  vice.  The  speaker  closed  her  eyes  and  began  saying 
nothing  about  the  subject  again,  in  fulfilment  of  her  manifesto. 

Marianne  ran  her  eyes  over  the  scanty  fringe  of  letters  stuck 
in  the  mirror-frame  over  the  chimney-piece.  Mr.  Tillingfleet's 
business  handwriting  was  soon  found.  "  He  does  say  no  such 
thing,"  said  she,  after  reading  it  to  herself.  "  What  he  says  is  ab- 
solutely and  entirely  different." 

"  I  am  corrected.  When  you  are  quiet  once  more,  perhaps  you 
will  kindly  tell  me  what  he  says  ?  " 

"Grandmamma,  I  tell  you  plainly  it  is  no  use  trying  to  make 
me  out  in  a  temper,  because  I'm  not.  ..." 

"Go  on.     I  am  accustomed  to  being  snapped  at." 

"  I  shall  not  go  on  if  you  talk  like  that." 

"  I  have  no  wish  to  hear  the  letter  again.  Don't  read  it  if  you 
don't  want  to.  I  know  perfectly  well  what's  in  it."  The  venerable 
lady  then  murmured  to  herself,  most  offensively,  "  Three  little 
Liver  Pills."  It  was  one  of  her  practices  to  sketch  correctives  for 
controversial  opponents,  the  doses  increasing  in  proportion  to  the 
degree  of  diversity  of  opinion. 

Marianne,  armed  with  a  combative  immobility  of  face  and 
monotony  of  accent,  read  aloud  from  Mr.  Tillingfleet's  letter. 
" '  The  retrospective  action  of  the  measure  now  before  Parlia- 
ment will,  if  carried,  seriously  affect  the  relations  of  Sir  Alfred 
Challis  and  your  daughter.  It  will  undoubtedly  determine  the 
technical  legitimacy  of  their  children,  and  give  their  de  facto 
father  a  legal  right  to  their  guardianship.'  There ! "  says  Mari- 
anne in  conclusion,  replacing' the  letter  in  the  looking-glass. 

But  her  mother  rallies  her  forces  with  asperity  against  the  as- 
sumptions of  this  monosyllable,  saying  enigmatically  that  she  is 
"not  going  to  be  'there'd.'"  It  is  ridiculous,  she  says,  to  pre- 
tend that  she  said  that  Mr.  Tillingfleet  said  there  was  anything  in 
the  Bill  to  compel  anyone  to  do  anything.  But,  for  all  that,  Mari- 
anne would  have  to  live  with  her  husband  again,  or  go  without 
her  children. 


634  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Marianne  walked  up  and  down  the  room  over  this,  chafing.  She 
couldn't  believe  such  disgraceful  injustice  was  possible.  Besides, 
if  the  Bill  passed  ever  so,  Titus  would  never  have  the  meanness 
to  take  her  children  from  her.  To  think  that,  all  this  year  past,  he 
could  have  married  that  girl  at  any  moment,  and  then  to  have  a 
right  to  his  children! 

Grandmamma  said  she  would  never  be  the  least  surprised  at  any 
freethinker  committing  bigamy.  All  freethinkers  committed  some- 
thing, or  many  things,  for  that  matter,  avoiding  felony  from  mo- 
tives of  policy.  "  He  knows  that  his  children  are  contrary  to  the 
Act  of  Parliament  now,  and  that  he's  no  right  to  them,  and  that's 
why  he  keeps  his  distance.  You'll  see,  Marianne,  that  it  will  be 
quite  another  story  if  this  wicked  Bill  passes." 

"  I  don't  believe  it.  Anyhow,  it  hasn't  passed  yet!  Besides,  the 
amendment  was  withdrawn." 

"Well!" 

"Well,  of  course!  Then  the  Bill  won't  have  a  retrospective 
character."  But  the  old  lady  was  too  sharp  to  fall  into  this  topsy- 
turvy view  of  the  case,  and  presently  succeeded  in  convincing  her 
daughter  of  her  mistake.  However,  Perplexity  was  only  scotched, 
not  killed.  "  Suppose  Titus  had  married  this  girl  already,  I 
.  mean,  and  the  Bill  passes,  which  of  us  would  be  his  wife  ?  I  don't 
see  how  any  amount  of  retrospects  could  unmarry  them"  Thus 
Marianne;  and  her  mother  can't  meet  the  difficulty  off-hand. 

But  consideration  lights  on  a  solution.  "  It  would  make  your 
children  legitimate,  and  he  would  claim  them,"  says  she,  with  the 
sort  of  glee  in  ambush  people  feel  over  a  fellow-creature  caught  in 
a  legal  man-trap. 

But  Marianne's  short  sight  is  often  clear  sight.  "What  rub- 
bish ! "  says  she.  "  If  Miss  Arkroyd  had  a  baby.  .  .  .  No ! — I 
don't  care,  Grandmamma.  She  wouldn't  be  Titus's  wife,  if  she 
married  him  at  all  the  churches  in  London,  and  you  know  it.  ... 
Yes! — I  say  again,  if  she  had  a  baby,  Titus  would  have  two 
legitimate  families  at  once,  and  she  would  be  his  Law-wife,  and  I 
shouldn't.  It's  silly!" 

Those  who  read  the  Debates  on  this  question  at  the  time — it  is 
not  so  long  ago  all  this  happened — will  remember  that  arguments 
akin  to  this  one  of  Marianne's  repulsed  the  forlorn  hopes  of  the 
Bill's  opponents,  and  clinched  its  retrospective  character.  What 
has  happened  to  women  who  had  married  their  sister's  husbands, 
and  been  superseded  by  a  "  lawful "  wife,  before  the  passing  of  this 
Bill,  the  story  knows  not.  Have  the  husbands  been  convicted 
of  retrospective  bigamy? 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  635 

But  this  story  has  little  more  concern  with  the  intricacies  of  dif- 
ficult legislation  in  this  matter  than  with  those  that  have  arisen  in 
any  other  coercion  by  Law  of  the  private  lives  of  the  non-aggressive 
classes.  It  is  hopeless,  apparently,  to  look  forward  to  a  day  when 
the  guiding  rule  of  the  law-giver  will  be  non-interference  with 
all  but  molestation;  but  one  may  indulge  in  satisfaction  at  each 
removal  from  the  Statute  Book  of  an  enactment  that  infringes  it. 

Marianne's  last  speech,  recorded  above,  shows  a  curious  frame 
of  mind.  She  had  thrust  her  husband  away  from  her  in  a  fit  of 
jealousy — not  an  ill-grounded  one,  by  any  means — and  had  bolstered 
up  her  conscience  by  what  she  more  than  half  suspected  to  be  a 
false  pretext;  but  one  in  which  she  felt  sure  of  the  support  of 
Grundydom  in  Great  Britain,  passim.  How  if  this  new  legislation, 
or  abrogation  of  old  legislation,  should  undermine  the  fortress  of 
her  powerful  allies,  and  leave  a  small  and  unconsidered  band  of 
bigots  to  fight  the  battle  of  an  imaginary  consanguinity?  Those 
are  not  the  words  of  her  mind — only  the  gist  of  her  thought.  What 
she  said  to  herself  was  that  now  there  was  to  be  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment everyone  would  go  round  the  other  way.  To  her  that  in- 
cluded the  thought  that  the  old  catchwords  that  had  done  duty  for 
so  long  would  begin  to  ring  false  when  brought  into  collision  with 
that  powerful  agency,  a  Parliamentary  majority.  Since  she  had 
been  dwelling  so  constantly  on  the  subject  she  had  more  than  once 
found  herself  face  to  face  with  impeachments  of  well-worn  argu- 
ments derived  from  Scripture;  notably  when  she  found  that  one 
Biblical  denunciation  treated  a  marriage  with  a  woman  who  might 
have  one  day  become  her  husband's  Deceased  Wife's  Sister,  but 
who  would  not  have  been  so  when  he  married  her,  unless  he  had 
waited  for  that  sine  qua  non,  his  wife's  death.  Thoughts  of  this 
sort  strengthened  and  multiplied  as  the  time  drew  nearer  for  this 
Parliamentary  discussion,  and  here  was  the  Bill  apparently  going 
to  become  Law,  and  by  a  backhanded  thrust  to  make  her  Titus's 
"Law-wife"  again,  as  well  as  what  her  own  heart  in  some  mys- 
terious way  proclaimed  her  to 'be — namely,  his  real  wife,  whatever 
that  meant!  She  was  certainly  in  a  very  curious,  confused,  self- 
contradictious  frame  of  mind,  was  Marianne. 

Perhaps  her  contradiction  and  confusion  had  never  been  much 
greater  than  on  this  Sunday  afternoon,  where  the  story  has 
left  her  for  so  long,  feverishly  pacing  up  and  down  the  room, 
after  puzzling  her  poor  stupid  head  trying  to  follow  the  Debate, 
and  make  some  sense  of  it..  She  had  succeeded  in  finding  out 
that  the  Bill  was  nearly  through  Parliament,  and  that  it  would 
affect  her  and  Titus  more  than  she  had  conceived  possible  hitherto. 


G36  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

She  was  working  herself  up  into  a  state  of  bitten  lips  and  sobs 
kept  in  abeyance.  Her  mother  was  not  the  person  to  encourage 
this  sort  of  thing.  "  If  you  must  prowl,  Marianne,"  said  she, 
"  can't  you  go  and  prowl  somewhere  else  ?  " 

Her  daughter  may  have  shown  her  state  of  mind;  for  as  she  re- 
turned to  her  sofa,  her  amiable  mother  added,  "  If  you  are  going  to 
sniff  and  make  a  scene,  Marianne,  you  had  better  have  the  chil- 
dren down."  The  old  woman  was  sitting  with  her  eyes  shut,  and 
really  had  very  slight  data  to  go  on. 

"  Whatever  Titus  was,  at  least  he  wasn't  unkind ! "  said  Mari- 
anne tartly.  But  she  touched  the  bell-handle,  and  its  sound  was 
followed  by  the  prompt  appearance  of  Mumps  and  Chobbles,  now 
no  longer  known  by  those  names,  which  had  been  to  some  extent 
their  father's  private  property.  The  younger  child  came  into  the 
room  shouting,  with  jumps  as  emphasis,  "  Now  we  may  have  the 
Thunday  papers  to  make  boats  of,  long  ones  and  short  ones." 

The  construction  of  a  Navy  had  been  a  great  piece  de  resistance 
at  the  Hermitage  in  old  days.  The  vessels  had  weak  points; 
notably  that  when  the  deck  was  flattened  out  on  completion,  the 
cut-water  was  apt  to  part  amidships,  unless  firmly  held  together 
by  a  neighbouring  shipwright,  or  stuck  together  with  a  pin.  But 
this  last  practice  was  looked  upon  with  suspicion,  as  hardly  legitit- 
mate.  The  question  does  not  arise,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  at 
Chatham  or  Devonport;  as  in  no  case  are  ships  first  constructed 
with  decks  analogous  to  the  bottoms  of  wine-bottles  seen  from 
within,  and  levelled  down  before  launching. 

Traditions  of  bygone  Dockyards  naturally  survived,  and  gave 
rise  to  controversy.  Marianne  was  always  in  dread  of  some  pain- 
ful reminder  of  the  past  during  ship-building.  But  it  kept  the 
children  quiet ;  so,  though  she  had  not  seen  the  whole  of  the  paper, 
owing  to  the  difficulty  of  analyzing  that  Debate,  she  conceded  it 
to  the  Contractors. 

Now,  a  practice  obtained  between  them  quite  at  variance  with 
the  care  and  foresight  usually  shown  in  the  placing  of  new  ships 
on  the  stocks.  If  in  any  of  the  Government  Dockyards  it  is  com- 
mon for  the  actual  length  of  a  ship  to  remain  an  open  question 
until  the  moment  of  construction,  it  should  surely  be  made  the 
subject  of  a  question  in  Parliament!  Mumps  and  Chobbles,  hav- 
ing obtained  the  paper,  differed  about  the  length  of  the  first  hull 
to  be  put  in  hand.  Chobbles  preferred  a  normal  full  sheet,  alleg- 
ing that  vessels  built  of  two  sheets  were  only  just  seaworthy, 
owing  to  weakness  of  the  backbone.  Mumps  was  ambitious,  ad- 
Tocating  a  ship  of  huge  length,  made  with  two  full  sheets.  Chob- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  637 

bles  opposed  this  scheme  on  the  ground  that,  if  pushed,  such  a 
vessel  would  collapse,  or  go  scrunch.  Mumps,  however,  had  set 
her  heart  on  it. 

"  Papa  thaid  it  wouldn't  go  scrunch — not  if  we  sticked  it  over  in 
the  middle — not  if  we  pulled  bofe  the  edges  across — not  if  we 
doo'd  like  viss."  Mumps  ended  an  imperfect  description  with  a 
practical  demonstration  of  how  the  vessel  might  be  strengthened 
in  the  middle  if  some  of  the  length  were  sacrificed.  "  Overlap  " 
was  the  word  she  wanted. 

"  Then  we  must  have  wafers,"  said  Chobbles.  Because  other- 
wise, you  see,  the  ship  might  come  in  half,  and  founder — who 
knows? — with  all  on  board. 

"You  may  have  wafers  if  you  won't  quarrel,"  said  the  mother 
of  the  shipwrights.  And  wafers  being  obtained  from  her  writing- 
desk,  a  threat  of  violence  from  Mumps  was  withdrawn  and  over- 
looked. 

Now  it  so  chanced  that,  the  newspaper  being  large  and  difficult 
to  control,  Chobbles,  as  principal,  gave  instructions  to  Mumps  to 
hold  the  two  sheets  the  long  ship  was  to  be  made  from  as  directed, 
while  she  herself  stuck  the  two  together,  cautiously  advancing 
across  the  paper  on  her  knees.  A  more  mature  shipwright  would 
have  wafered  the  two  corners  first,  and  distributed  the  remaining 
wafers  over  the  space  between,  so  as  to  make  the  most  of  them. 
As  it  turned  out,  Mumps  shifted  her  corner  while  Chobbles  was  yet 
half-way,  and  when  Chobbles  completed,  dismay  ensued.  For  the 
paper  didn't  lie  straight,  and  all  the  wafers  were  used  up.  Words 
followed,  and  recriminations.  Mumps  maintained  that  she  had 
held  on  to  her  corner  loyally,  unwaveringly;  Chobbles  that  she 
could  not  have  done  so,  because  she  herself  had  selected  a  passage 
in  large  type  as  the  point  Mumps  was  to  remain  faithful  to.  She 
was  in  a  position  to  show  that  if  her  little  sister  had  adhered  to 
her  instructions,  the  accident  would  not  have  happened. 

"What  are  those  children  fighting  about?"  said  their  Grand- 
mamma, who  had  fallen  asleep — had  been  snoring,  in  fact — and 
who  waked  suddenly.  "  It  all  comes,  Marianne,  of  your  letting 
them  play  on  Sunday  afternoon.  When  I  was  a  child  I  should 
have  been  writing  out  the  sermon,  and  well  whipped  if  I  couldn't 
recollect  it.  ..."  And  so  forth. 

"  What's  all  that  noise  about,  children  ? "  said  their  mother.  "  If 
you  can't  make  less  I  shall  ring  for  Martha  to  take  you  back  to 
the  nursery.  Be  quieter !  " 

Chobbles  plunged  straight  into  indictment,  Mumps  into  justifica- 
tion. "  I  said,  '  Hold  the  corner  to  Motor  Car,'  and  Mumps 


638  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

didn't."  ...  "I  did  held  it  to  Motor  Car,  and  never  leaved  it 
loose  one  minute."  ..."  You  did  not  hold  it  to  Motor  Car,  or 
it  would  be  up  against  Motor  Car  now."  ..."  Be-because  you 
shov-oveled  it  all  crooked,  and  it  wors  your  fault  and  it  worsn't 
my  fault"  .  .  .  and  more  to  the  same  effect,  came  mixed  with 
heart-broken  lamentations  over  the  ruin  of  the  great  ship's 
chances;  for  all  the  wafers  but  two  were  licked  and  used,  and  the 
wobble  of  the  raw  material  was  too  disheartening  for  any  attempt 
to  be  made  to  rectify  it. 

"  It  just  serves  you  right  for  quarrelling  about  it,"  said  Grand- 
mamma savagely,  taking  a  mean  advantage  of  the  difficulties  youth 
has  in  convicting  maturity  of  defective  reasoning.  "  And  it  serves 
you  right,  Marianne,  for  letting  the  children  have  the  horrible 
things  at  all."  She  went  on  to  point  out  that  all  the  benefit  of 
Afternoon  Service  was  lost  if  contact  with  such  profanities  was 
permitted  afterwards. 

Meanwhile  Marianne,  painfully  conscious  that  in  these  days  she 
could  not  say,  as  of  old,  "  What  would  your  father  say  if  he  heard 
you  quarrel  like  that  ? " — for  fear  of  complications — went  to  the 
children,  still  at  daggers  drawn  over  the  newspaper  on  the  floor,  to 
make  an  official  investigation  of  the  facts. 

Did  not  the  story  note,  a  page  ago,  that  she  had  altogether 
missed  a  sheet  of  the  paper?  She  had,  and  it  was  an  important 
one;  the  one  containing  the  very  Latest  Intelligence  and  Stop-the- 
press  News.  And  the  words  "  Motor  Car,"  chosen  by  Chobbles  as 
a  finger-guide  for  her  small  sister,  formed  part  of  the  following 
piece  of  Latest  Intelligence: — "Fatal  Motor-Car  Accident. — An 
accident,  which  has  already  caused  one  death,  and  which  it  is 
feared  may  have  other  fatal  results,  occurred  yesterday  morning 
at  Royd,  in  Rankshire,  close  to  the  seat  of  Sir  Murgatroyd  Ark- 
royd,  Bart.,  some  years  since  Member  for  the  County.  The  car, 
the  property  of  Lord  Felixthorpe,  Sir  Murgatroyd's  son-in-law,  was 
turning  a  sharp  corner  near  the  picturesque  and  interesting  spot 
known  as  *  The  Abbey  Well,'  when  the  deceased,  a  man  known  as 
'Blind  Jim,'  stepped  incautiously  into  the  middle  of  the  road,  so 
suddenly  that  the  promptest  action  of  the  chauffeur  in  his  ap- 
plication of  the  brake  could  not  avert  a  catastrophe.  Un- 
fortunately, as  the  car  swerved,  one  of  its  occupants,  a  gentleman 
whose  name  had  not  transpired  at  the  moment  of  writing,  rose  to 
his  feet  in  his  apprehension  that  a  mishap  was  impending,  and 
was  thrown  violently  into  the  road,  falling  on  his  head.  He  was 
conveyed  to  Royd  Hall  insensible,  but  we  understand  that  hopes 
are  confidently  entertained  of  his  recovery.  We  are  glad  to  be 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  639 

able  to  add  that  the  lady  who  was  the  other  occupant  of  the  car, 
Miss  Judith  Arkroyd,  the  eldest  daughter  of  Sir  Murgatroyd,  had 
the  good  fortune  to  sustain  no  injury  beyond  the  inevitable  shock 
attendant  on  so  tragic  an  occurrence."  Jim's  death  was  rather 
taken  for  granted  in  this  paragraph ;  no  doubt  the  wire  on  which  it 
was  founded  had  felt  the  greater  importance  of  the  motorists.  No 
one  ever  knew  who  sent  it.  In  such  cases,  no  one  ever  does. 

The  overlap  amidships  just  hid  all  but  the  first  three  lines;  and 
when  Marianne  examined  it,  with  a  view  to  remedying  the  mis- 
carriage, she  attached  no  more  importance  to  "  Fatal  Motor  Acci- 
dent," in  large  capitals,  than  to  any  other  mishaps  the  newspaper 
world  gets  killed  in.  There  are  always  accidents!  But  in  the 
course  of  a  laborious  detachment  of  the  last  two  or  three  wafers, 
to  be  employed  in  reconstruction  if  gummy  enough,  the  words 
"  Royd  in  Rankshire  "  were  uncovered,  and  caught  her  eye. 

"  Stop,  children ! — don't  fuss  and  worry.  I  want  to  read 
this.  .  .  .  Royd  Hall  in  Rankshire."  .  .  .  The  last  words 
were  said  to  herself  in  relief  of  thought,  not  as  information  for 
the  children,  who  didn't  matter. 

"  What's  that  about  Royd  in  Rankshire  ? "  Grandmamma 
waked  suddenly,  and  put  a  good  deal  of  side  on  her  snarl,  provision- 
ally, not  knowing  how  much  acrimony  might  turn  out  to  be 
needed. 

"  Wait  till  I've  read  it,  and  I'll  tell  you." 

"  Oh,  don't  tell  me  if  you  don't  like.  It's  no  concern  of  mine." 
Nevertheless,  Marianne,  after  reading  through  the  paragraph  to 
herself — during  which  the  old  lady  affected  perusal  of  a  sermon — 
took  her  anxiety  to  hear  for  granted,  and  read  it  through  aloud. 
It  met  with  the  comment: 

"  I  suppose  that's  what  you  grunted  at,  the  first  time  ? " 

"  Suppose  what's  what  I  grunted  at  ...  oh !'  had  the  good 
fortune  to  sustain  no  injury/  do  you  mean?  Well,  Grandmamma, 
I  suppose  you  wouldn't  expect  me  to  cry  my  eyes  out  if  .  .  ." 

"If  'handsome  Judith'  got  her  beauty  spoiled — is  that  it?" 

"  I  shouldn't  cry  my  eyes  out.  I  wonder  who  her  other  gentle- 
man was,  in  the  car !  I'm  glad  it  wasn't  Titus,  at  any  rate." 

"  How  do  you  know  ? " 

"  Oh,  mamma,  how  can  you  be  such  a  fool,  when  Bob  heard 
from  his  father  only  yesterday,  at  that  place  in  Derbyshire;  he 
got  the  letter  this  morning."  Bob  had  been  at  Broadstairs  a  week 
at  this  date,  and,  in  pursuance  of  a  policy  of  avoiding  his  grand- 
mother on  Sundays,  when  she  was  liable  to  malignant  forms  of 
piety,  had  started  early  in  the  day  to  walk  to  Canterbury — his  be- 


640  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

loved  Tillotson  was  staying  there  with  an  ecclesiastical  relative — 
where  he  would  stop  the  night,  and  whence  he  would  walk  back  next 
day,  accompanied  probably  by  Tillotson.  Well! — it  was  only 
eighteen  miles! 

Marianne  was  as  sure  that  her  husband  was  safe,  leagues  away 
from  Royd  Hall,  yesterday  morning,  as  she  was  that  she  had  packed 
off  Bob  with  sandwiches  and  cake  after  an  early  breakfast  twelve 
hours  ago,  and  that  he  and  Tillotson  were  enjoying  Choral 
Services  and  Purple  Emperors  alternately  to  their  hearts'  con- 
tent. She  was  satisfied — not  reasonably;  but  then,  it  was  com- 
fortable to  be  unreasonable — that  he  had  posted  the  letter  as  soon 
as  it  was  written;  and  as  it  reached  on  Sunday,  it  was  posted  on 
Saturday.  What  could  be  clearer? 

She  was  so  comfortable  about  it  that  she  re-read  the  paragraph 
once  or  twice,  not  quite  without  a  kindling  hope  that  Miss  Ark- 
royd's  motoring  about  with  a  gentleman  unnamed  might  "  mean 
.something  " — mean  something,  that  is,  that  would  end  the  chapter 
of  Titus's  admiration  for,  or  "  connection  with,"  Miss  Arkroyd. 
It  didn't  matter  which  you  called  it. 

One  thing  was  clear  enough.  The  injured  man  was  a  stranger 
to  the  purveyor  of  the  news;  not  the  owner  of  the  car,  just  men- 
tioned, nor  any  other  of  the  habitues  of  Royd  Hall,  all  of  whom 
would  be  well  known  in  the  neighbourhood.  Oh  yes! — that  was 
all  right.  She  hoped,  however,  that  if  he  was  an  aspirant  to  Miss 
Arkroyd's  hand,  he  was  not  seriously  damaged,  so  as  to  diminish 
his  probabilities  of  success.  As  for  "  Blind  Jim,"  she  was  sorry 
for  him,  with  a  general  feeling  that  "  handsome  Judith  "  was  re- 
sponsible for  his  mishap,  but  without  any  definite  recollection  of 
him.  She  may  never  have  heard  him  mentioned  at  all,  for  Mrs. 
Steptoe  was  not  communicative  about  her  brother;  and  although 
Challis  had  certainly  made  Lizarann's  acquaintance  before  Mari- 
anne left  her  home,  it  was  only  on  that  last  day  of  his  abruptly 
terminated  visit  to  Royd.  And  that  was  all  ancient  history  by 
now. 

She  resumed  the  reconstruction  question  quite  at  ease  in  her 
mind ;  if  anything,  with  a  sense  of  something  not  unpleasant  hav- 
ing happened.  Further  search  yielded  two  or  three  more  wafers, 
and  the  ship  was  completed  and  launched.  But  the  resistance,  to 
shearing-force,  of  the  bolts  that  held  the  fore  and  aft  parts  together 
had  not  been  properly  calculated.  A  dissension  between  the  own- 
ers led  to  an  attempt  to  drag  her  two  ways  at  once,  and — to  use  very 
un-nautical  language — she  gave  at  the  wafers.  Mumps,  seized 
with  despair,  was  told  that  if  she  roared  and  stamped,  she  shouldn't 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  641 

be  allowed  to  make  ships  at  all;  and  her  mother,  to  show  that  she 
was  in  earnest,  picked  up  the  shattered  vessel,  and  proceeded  to 
re-embody  it  as  the  Sunday  paper.  But  a  something  caught  her 
eye,  and  she  read  again. 

A  moment  after  Grandmamma,  rousing  herself  wrathfully,  ex- 
claimed, "  What  is  all  this  horrible  noise  about  ?  Those  children 
had  better  go  upstairs.  I  tell  you  they  shall  go,  Marianne;  I 
won't  have  the  noise  any  longer !  "  and  began  pulling  the  bell  to 
summon  Martha,  the  nurse.  She  must  have  taken  a  sound  that 
came  from  her  daughter  for  protest  or  remonstrance;  for  she 
stormed  on,  heedless  that  the  voice  of  the  two  children  had 
changed  from  mere  unruliness  to  terror.  "  It's  no  use  your  say- 
ing *yow/  because  I  tell  you  I  won't  have  it.  On  Sunday 
afternoon,  too!  .  .  .  What?"  She  turned  furiously,  but  her 
fury  gave  place  to  alarm  as  she  caught  sight  of  her  daughter,  ashy 
white,  gasping  to  speak,  but  speechless;  clutching  with  one  hand 
the  paper  that  had  been  the  ship,  pointing  to  something  in  it  with 
the  other. 

Then  Marianne  found  a  voice,  or  a  voice  she  hardly  knew  as  her 
own,  to  cry  out  chokingly,  "  Oh,  Titus,  Titus ! — dying !  "  She 
relinquished  the  paper  to  her  mother,  saying,  "  Oh  yes — here ! — oh, 
here!  Look,  look!  ..."  still  pointing,  and  then  covering  her 
eyes,  with  a  cry  of  despair:  "He  is  dying — dying!  Oh,  children, 
children,  your  father  will  die,  and  I  shall  not  be  beside  him ! " 

"  You  fool !  "  said  the  old  lady.  "  Don't  go  on  like  a  mad  thing. 
Before  the  children ! "  She  was  scared,  but  it  must  be  admitted 
she  showed  discipline.  "  You  might  at  least  be  quiet  while  I 
read  it.  ...  No! — Wait,  Martha!  .  .  .  can't  you  see?  .  .  . 
you  servants  never  can  see  ..."  She  took  the  paper  to  the  win- 
dow— for  the  light  was  failing — and  read  to  herself.  After  a  min- 
ute, she  said  abruptly,  "  Ho ! "  and  then  sotto  voce,  "  He'll  die  in 
her  arms,  at  any  rate."  And  then  this  venerable  woman — let  us 
hope  with  an  affectation  of  indifference  to  the  fate  of  her  son-in- 
law,  contrived  something  nearly  approaching  a  snigger  as  an  ac- 
companiment to  the  remark,  aloud,  "  He  won't  die !  You  needn't 
fret  yourself.  Handsome  Judith  will  see  that  he's  properly  doc- 
tored up."  Leniency  might  have  supposed  this  an  attempt  to 
strengthen  her  daughter  against  her  trouble  by  appealing  to  her 
resentment.  If  so,  it  was  an  impolitic  one.  For  Marianne,  appar- 
ently as  a  response,  said  decisively,  "I  shall  go  to  him  at  once," 
and  seemed  to  mean  it. 

"Don't  be  an  idiot!  You  can't  pay  for  your  ticket.  You 
haven't  any  money,  and  7  shan't  give  you  any."  But  it  seemed 


642  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

that  Marianne  had  money,  so  this  attempt  to  hinder  her  departure 
only  hastened  it.  She  was  not  one  to  submit  to  coercion  tamely. 
To  be  brief,  she  put  a  few  necessaries  in  a  bag,  hugged  her  chil- 
dren well,  consoling  them  as  best  she  could,  begged  that  the  news 
should  be  kept  from  Bob  till  more  was  known — for  this  Marianne, 
with  all  her  faults,  had  a  strong  leaven  of  family  affection — and 
caught  the  quick  train  for  London. 

She  would  have  travelled  all  night  had  there  been  a  train.  As 
it  was,  she  was  up  very  early  at  the  Hotel,  got  a  poor  breakfast, 
and  left  Euston  by  the  first  express,  before  eight  o'clock  struck. 
Would  Titus  be  alive  on  her  arrival? 

For  the  item  of  "  Stop-the-press  News "  that  had  caught  her 
eye,  and  thrown  a  light  on  the  paragraph  she  had  just  read,  ran 
as  follows :  "  Name  of  gentleman  thrown  from  motor-car  yester- 
day morning  at  Royd,  Sir  Alfred  Challis,  well-known  author  and 
playwright;  condition  precarious,  but  not  despaired  of." 

In  the  greatest  stress  of  trouble  absurd  thoughts  hang  about  like 
imps,  and  vex  one  with  their  insignificance.  All  through  that 
five  hours'  rail  Marianne  was  plagued  with  the  question: — Suppose 
those  people  chose  to  address  her  as  "Lady  Challis,"  what  should 
she  do? 


CHAPTEK  LI 

HOW  CHALLIS  CAME  TO,  AND  SPOKE.  BUT  HE  ASKED  FOR  MARIANICE,  AND 
DIDN'T  KNOW  JUDITH  FROM  ADAM.  HOW  THE  LATTER  PROMISED  TO 
TELL  HER  FATHER.  THE  WORLD'S  GUESSES,  MEANWHILE.  HOW  THE 
DUCHESS  SAID  WHAT  THE  POINT  WAS,  AND  CHALLIS  RELAPSED 

IT  was  on  a  Saturday,  the  twenty-fourth  of  August,  that  Alfred 
Challis  met  with  his  mishap,  at  half -past  nine  in  the  morning.  It 
was  not  till  eight  o'clock  on  Monday  that  he  began  to  regain  con- 
sciousness, very  slowly,  having  been  nearly  forty-eight  hours 
speechless,  and  seemingly  insensible. 

Experience  tends  to  show  that  in  most  cases  of  recovery  from 
coma,  whether  the  cause  be  traumatic  or  otherwise,  the  first 
memories  that  present  themselves  are  those  of  the  last  events  of 
which  the  patient  has  been  conscious.  With  Challis  it  was  other- 
wise. During  his  stupor  he  had  forgotten,  apparently,  all  about 
his  accident — about  what  led  to  it — about  Eoyd  Hall,  his  infatua- 
tion for  Judith,  his  wife's  desertion.  Nothing  of  the  story  of  the 
past  year-and-a-half  was  left  when  he  first  became  aware  that  he 
was  in  a  strange  room,  lying  on  luxurious  pillows,  with  a  great  deal 
of  bandage  on  his  head  and  a  great  deal  of  pain  inside  it.  What 
must  seem  strangest  of  all  was  that  he  had  forgotten  Judith 
herself ! 

For  Judith,  whose  communications  with  her  family  will  be 
easiest  explained  later,  had  been  roused  before  her  usual  calling- 
time  by  her  little  maid,  Cintilla,  who  announced  joyously  that  if 
Judith  pleased,  miss,  Sir  Alfred  Challis  had  spoken.  "  Did  he  ask 
for  me?"'  said  the  young  lady.  But  Cintilla  couldn't  say.  The 
nurse  didn't  hear  words.  A  nurse  had  been  got  from  Grime  on 
the  Saturday  afternoon. 

"  Ask  the  nurse  not  to  talk  to  anyone  else  till  I  can  come,"  said 
Judith.  Then  she  scrambled  into  some  clothes  and  a  peignoir,  and 
went  straight  to  his  bedside. 

"My  little  Cintilla  said  Sir  Alfred  Challis  had  spoken,  Miss 
O'Connor,  but  that  you  couldn't  make  out  what  he  said?" 

"  Oh  yes — I'm  quite  sure  he  spoke.  But  I  shouldn't  like  to 
swear  to  the  words,  Miss  Arkroyd." 

"  But  short  of  swearing  to  them  .    .    .  you've  an  impression  ? " 

643 


644  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Yes — but  I  think  it  must  have  been  a  mistaken  one.  I  thought 
what  he  said  was  'Polly  Anne.'  .  .  .  Perhaps  there's  some- 
one? .  .  ." 

The  story  has  more  than  once  spoken  of  Judith  Arkroyd'a 
splendid  nerve  and  powers  of  self-control — at  least,  against  all 
moral  disturbing  forces.  On  this  occasion  the  perfect  self- 
possession  with  which  she  said,  "  Oh  yes ! — he  was  speaking  of  his 
wife,"  would  have  done  credit  to  Julius  Caesar  or  Napoleon. 

The  nurse  showed  by  a  perfectly  natural  question  her  absolute 
unsuspicion  of  a  fox  under  the  cloak.  "  Had  Lady  Challis  far  to 
come  ? "  For  she  must  have  been  sent  for — that  saw  itself. 

"  We  don't  know — I  mean,  we  don't  know  where  Lady  Challis  is. 
When  Sir  Alfred  comes  to  himself,  he  will  tell  us.  ...  Is  he  not 
speaking  again?  ..."  Yes,  he  was.  Both  listened.  Judith  was 
reflective  a  moment  over  what  to  do;  then  said:  "Would  you 
kindly  knock  at  my  father's  door,  and  say  we  think  Sir  Alfred  is 
coming  to  himself  ?  Or  tell  James  to  tell  him."  The  nurse  thinks 
to  herself :  "  More  obvious,  surely,  for  this  young  lady  to  hunt  up 
her  father,  and  leave  the  patient  to  me !  "  But  Judith,  seeing  hesi- 
tation, suggests  a  motive.  When  Sir  Alfred  opens  his  eyes  he  may 
be  alarmed  to  find  himself  alone  with  a  professional  nurse.  Also, 
Judith  is  always  authoritative. 

She  seemed  half-frightened  of  the  patient,  left  alone  with  him. 
Would  not  you,  woman,  who  are  reading  this,  have  taken  the  hand 
of  the  man  if  you  loved  him?  Did  Judith  love  him?  She  did  not 
take  his  hand.  Do  you  find  her  inexplicable?  She  was  not  really 
so;  it  is  only  the  story's  want  of  skill  that  makes  her  seem  so. 
Then,  think  of  the  conflict  of  feeling  and  motive  under  her  cir- 
cumstances. .  .  .  However,  let  that  wait! 

Perhaps  it  was  as  well  that  she  did  not  take  his  hand.  Possibly 
what  she  did  and  said  was  safest,  all  things  considered.  She  re- 
mained standing,  immovable  as  a  statue,  by  the  bedside,  and  when 
his  eyes  opened  and  turned  to  her,  more  in  inquiry  than  astonish- 
ment or  alarm,  said  simply,  "Well?"  and  waited  for  speech  to 
come  from  him. 

"  Are  you  real  ? "  said  Challis.  Her  white,  scared  look  and 
seeming  shrinking  from  him  grew  more  marked.  His  words, 
creepy  and  uncanny  all  the  more  that  their  speaker  uttered  them 
so  equably,  made  her  fear  his  reason  had  given  way.  Even  those 
who  have  loved  one  demented  will  shrink  from  his  insanity.  But 
she  kept  her  self-command,  and  replied  with  a  voice  under  control : 

"  Scroop — do  you  not  know  me  ?    I  am  Judith." 

"Judith?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  645 

"  Yes — Judith  Arkroyd.    Do  you  not  remember  ?  " 

"  Judith  Arkroyd — yes — a — oh  yes !  "  There  was  an  amiable 
air  about  him  of  a  wish  to  be  civil — an  evasive  acquiescence  he 
might  have  shown  to  an  attractive  lady  he  had  met  in  Society,  and 
now  met  again  and  took  the  word  of  for  her  identity.  He  would 
talk  a  little,  and  something  in  the  conversation  would  soon  re- 
mind him  whom  he  was  speaking  to.  That  sort  of  thing!  His 
provisional  pretence  of  recognition  was  more  convincing  a  thou- 
sand times  of  his  forgetfulness  than  any  amount  of  denial  of  it 
would  have  been. 

What  could  Judith  do?  Attack  the  position  at  once?  Say  to 
him :  "  Try  to  think !  Try  to  recall  all  our  love-passages  of  this 
year  past!  Remember  the  little  garden  in  the  moonlight,  and 
your  arms  you  found  it  so  hard  to  restrain  within  the  rules  of  good- 
breeding!  Remember  your  mad,  hot  outburst,  and  your  flight 
from  an  entichement  you  found  insupportable;  your  quarrel  with 
you  wife;  your  troth-plight  and  mine;  the  tension  of  that  Bill 
question.  And  last  and  most,  or  worst,  that  automobile  and  the 
man  ahead,  already  as  good  as  slain!  Think  of  any  of  these 
things,  and  surely  you  will  remember  that  this  is  I,  Judith,  that 
was  to  have  been  your  wife ! "  All  that  this  man  must  have  for- 
gotten, to  forget  her,  rushed  through  Judith's  mind,  to  take  form  in 
words  should  she  nerve  herself  to  utter  it,  or  any  choice  from  it. 
But  the  next  thing  he  said  clashed  so  ruthlessly  with  the  last  of 
her  thought  that  speech  on  those  lines  was  made  hopeless. 

"  My  head  aches  so  confoundedly  that  I  feel  quite  an  idiot,  and 
can't  think  of  anything.  But  I  can  see  one  thing — someone  is 
being  rery  kind  to  me.  I  think  if  my  wife  were  to  come  she 
would  be  able  to  thank  you  for  me.  Is  she  not  here  ?  Can  she  not 
be  got?  My  wife  Polly  Anne?" 

Yes — the  barrier  of  his  utter  lack  of  recognition  could  not  be  sur- 
mounted yet,  if  ever.  She  must  accept  the  role  of  a  stranger;  for 
now,  certainly — perhaps  for  good.  Luckily,  he  had  closed  his  eyes 
as  his  voice  grew  fainter  with  his  effort,  and  died  out  on  his  last 
word.  She  fought  bravely  against  the  tremulousness  of  her  own 
to  say:  "We  do  not  know  where  to  send  to  her.  Can  you  tell 
us?" 

"  Yes — but  don't  frighten  her.  Send  it  as  from  me.  Say  I  have 
had  a  slight  accident — that  is  it,  I  suppose?  .  .  ." 

"  Yes,  you  have  had  an  accident — a  fall." 

"...  And  am  doing  perfectly  well.     Mind  you  say  that!" 

"  Oh  yes — that  shall  be  worded  all  right.  But  where  are  we  to 
send?" 


646  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Number  eighty- three — I  think  it's  number  eighty-three — Great 
Coram  Street."  Again  his  great  effort  to  speak  overcame  him; 
and,  though  he  got  through  the  last  words  plainly,  they  ended  in  a 
groan.  Then  Judith  heard  her  father  coming,  and  the  nurse,  and 
left  the  room  to  meet  him.  The  nurse  passed  on  into  the  room, 
but  Sir  Murgatroyd  stopped  to  speak  with  his  daughter.  He  looked 
ill  and  harassed,  and  his  age  was  visible  on  him.  The  last  two 
days  had  tried  him,  no  doubt! 

"  They  say  Sir  Alfred  has  spoken.    Is  that  so  ? " 

"Yes — he  has  been  speaking  to  me.  But,  oh — papa — 
papa!  ..."  It  stopped  him  dead  to  hear  the  distress  in  her 
voice. 

"  Yes,  dear  child,  what  ?  Tell  me— tell  me  all!  ..."  It  took 
her  a  moment  to  choke  down  a  sob,  and  then  it  came. 

"  He  does  not  know  who  I  am — he  does  not  know  me."  There 
is  such  a  thing  as  a  whisper,  as  well  as  a  cry,  of  pain,  and  Judith's 
strong  resolve  of  self-control  curbed  her  last  words  down  to  one. 
Her  father,  as  he  took  her  in  his  arms,  felt  how  she  was  trembling 
with  the  shock  of  her  upset.  She  had  borne  the  effects  of  the 
motor  accident  better  than  this. 

The  old  gentleman  kissed  her  tenderly,  calling  her  by  an  old  pet 
name  he  sometimes  used.  "  Dear  girl,  dear  Jujube,"  said  he.  "  I 
am  afraid  you  loved  this  man." 

She  seemed  to  recoil  from  this  placing  of  the  fact  on  record. 
"  That  is  all  over  now,"  said  she  stonily.  "  But  you  are  a  dear 
good  papa  " ;  and  kissed  him  in  return  affectionately.  He  seemed 
relieved,  and  said :  "  But  now  you  will  tell  me  all  about  it."  She 
replied :  "  I  will.  All ! "  And  then  her  mother  came,  in  haste, 
and  all  went  together  into  Challis's  room.  But  previous  exertions 
had  told  upon  the  patient,  and  he  was  equal  to  no  more  than  a  few 
broken  words  of  thanks,  recognizing  no  one,  but  somehow  conscious 
that  he  was  being  hospitably  cared  for,  and  that  his  visitors  were 
his  hosts. 

Up  to  this  time  Judith's  family  had  been  kept  in  the  dark 
about  the  important  fact  in  the  story  of  the  accident — the  reason 
why  Judith  and  Challis  were  in  the  motor-car  at  all.  Each  may 
have  had  his  or  her  surmise  as  to  the  object  of  their  rendezvous  and 
sudden  departure,  but  they  had  not  conversed  openly  about  it,  so 
far.  Sibyl  had  certainly  said  to  her  husband  in  confidence,  at 
an  hour  when  she  supposed  all  the  rest  of  the  house  asleep :  "  You'll 
see  that  I'm  right,  Frank!  It  was  an  elopement,  pre-arranged. 
Fancy  their  meeting  by  accident — parcel  of  nonsense  I "  To  which 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  647 

her  husband,  who  was  going  to  sleep,  and  not  in  his  usual  linguistic 
form,  had  replied :  "  Oh,  gammon,  Sib ! "  Sibyl  had  then  ad- 
duced reasons,  such  as  that  Challis  could  not  have  been  on  his 
way  to  the  Rectory  out  there  near  the  Park  Gate ;  that  the  Duchess 
at  least  knew  nothing  of  any  appointment  for  Judith  to  come  to 
the  Castle  at  an  hour  which,  according  to  her  Grace,  was  "  almost 
yesterday  " ;  and  that,  most  of  all,  M.  Rossier  had  said  Sir  Alfred 
had  a  map  in  his  pocket.  What  did  Sir  Alfred  want  with  a  map 
unless  they  were  going  a  long  distance?  But  his  Lordship  was 
not  listening,  and  her  Ladyship  convicted  him  of  it,  and  then 
both  their  ships  went  to  sleep. 

All  this  makes  one  see  Judith,  and  how  each  member  of  her 
family,  without  being  exactly  afraid  of  her,  left  the  elucidation 
of  the  mystery  to  the  others.  But  behind  a  natural  reluctance  to' 
belling  the  cat — though  the  metaphor  is  no  doubt  exaggerated — lay 
the  feeling  that  the  truth  might  work  out  as  tragedy;  the  facts 
might  contain  the  germs  of  heart-break.  Silence  certainly  had  its 
recommendations.  Besides,  explanation  was  inevitable  in  the  end; 
so  why  analyze  and  probe  now,  with  the  uncertainty  still  hanging 
over  us  whether  this  gentleman  would  live  or  die;  and  the  other 
uncertainty  as  to  whether  the  inquest  to-morrow  would  absolve 
the  motor-car,  or  find  that  poor  Jim  had  been  the  victim  of  its 
gross  carelessness?  Its  owner  was  feeling  bound  to  make  a  fight 
for  its  chauffeur,  but  he  had  told  M.  Rossier  his  mind  as  plainly 
as  his  French  would  permit. 

As  for  poor  Jim's  death,  there  was  no  lack  of  perfectly  honest 
and  heart-felt  sorrow  for  the  tragical  disaster  on  the  part  of 
any  member  of  the  family,  except  Judith.  She  said  nothing, 
certainly;  but  surely  it  was  a  case  in  which  a  stony  silence  was 
ungraceful?  However,  her  mother  and  sister  let  her  go  her 
own  way.  She  was  Judith! — and  would  be  so  to  the  end  of  the 
chapter. 

Meanwhile  it  was  a  serious  grief  to  the  Baronet  and  Lord  Felix- 
thorpe,  shared  to  a  great  extent  by  their  respective  wives,  that  poor 
Jim  had  left  no  family  that  would  have  been  open  to  endowment  or 
adoption.  When  Athelstan  Taylor,  arriving  late  on  Saturday 
evening  with  Mr.  Brownrigg,  who  had  remained  on  at  the  Rectory, 
brought  the  full  particulars  of  Jim's  death,  he  had  also  the  un- 
pleasant task  of  crushing  out  all  the  plans  Sir  Murgatroyd  and  his 
wife  were  forming  for  Lizarann's  benefit.  They  had  all  but 
adopted  her  in  anticipation;  indeed,  a  sort  of  competition  for  pos- 
session of  the  child  had  arisen  between  them  and  their  son-in-law. 
But,  alas ! — poor  little  Lizarann,  or  the  shell  she  had  left,  lay  dead 


648  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

in  the  sound  of  the  sea  that  was  to  have  done  her  so  much  good. 
It  was  a  cruel  disappointment  to  Sir  Murgatroyd. 

The  Rector's  surmises,  which  he  kept  to  himself,  about  the  true 
story  of  the  motor-car  and  Challis's  meeting  with  Judith,  were 
based  on  fuller  information  than  the  Baronet's.  He  was  quite 
satisfied  in  his  own  mind  that  the  pair  had  resolved  to  anticipate 
the  retrospective  operation  of  the  measure  before  Parliament  by 
constituting  themselves  legally  man  and  wife,  and  making  its 
action  in  their  case  impossible.  He  knew  Challis's  disposition  was 
towards  taking  this  step;  and  while  he  was  far  from  having  the 
heart  to  say,  "  Serve  him  right !  "  of  the  man  who,  when  he  went 
up  to  his  bedside  and  touched  him  and  spoke  to  him,  lay  dead  and 
irresponsive — perhaps  never  to  speak  again — still,  he  could  not  but 
feel  that  in  that  man's  place  he  would  soonest  have  taken  his 
chance  of  some  possible  reasonable  operation  of  Law  later  on. 
Failing  which  he  would — so  he  thought — have  borne  his  lot  cour- 
ageously as  in  any  other  case  where  Duty  bars  the  road  that  In- 
clination beckons  us  to  take.  But,  then,  how  about  that  awk- 
ward thought — what  right  would  he  have  had  to  prescribe  his  own 
high  moralities  to  a  woman  whose  sole  crime  would  have  been  that 
she  loved  him?  "Judge  not,  that  ye  be  not  judged,"  said  he  to 
himself,  as  he  turned  from  the  impassive  figure  on  the  bed.  You 
see,  he  had  never  been  under  fire  on  that  battle-field!  But,  what- 
ever he  thought,  he  said  not  a  word  of  it  to  the  Baronet  or  the 
Family,  and  he  purposely  avoided  speech  apart  with  Judith.  He 
looked  forward,  by  preference,  to  hearing  the  first  explanation 
from  Challis  himself. 

The  doctor  came  and  went — saw  no  danger — anticipated  early 
return  to  consciousness — would  not  oppose  Sir  Murgatroyd  wiring 
for  Sir  Rhyscombe  Edison,  if  he  thought  it  necessary;  but  he 
did  not  see,  neither  did  a  colleague,  summoned  from  Grime  to  con- 
sult, what  Sir  Rhyscombe  could  say  more  than  "  Wait  with  pa- 
tience ! "  Apparently  there  was  no  depression  of  the  cranium, 
and  certainly  there  was  no  fracture.  Still,  it  was  all  for  their  in- 
terest that  Sir  Rhyscombe  should  come;  the  less  responsibility  for 
himself  and  Dr.  Shaw  Cox,  the  better  for  them!  Sir  Murgatroyd 
consented  to  let  the  wire  he  had  written  stand  over  till  next  day, 
though  he  nearly  went  back  on  his  word  when  his  wife  said: 
"  Just  consider ! — a  two  hundred  pound  fee !  "  As  far  as  that 
went,  he  would  have  wired  for  the  whole  College  of  Surgeons  if  he 
had  thought  it  his  duty,  and  taken  his  chance  of  the  workhouse. 

Mr.  Brownrigg  the  Grauboschite  found  his  visit  very  different 
from  what  he  had  anticipated;  and,  indeed,  felt  himself  very  much 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  649 

de  trop.  He  had  been  in  the  habit  of  regarding  places  like  Royd 
Hall  from  their  guest-recipient  point  of  view — a  kind  of  gratuitous 
taverns,  or  hydropathic  establishments,  rather,  of  a  refined  sort; 
where,  provided  always  that  he  behaved  sweetly,  and  tipped  the 
servants  liberally,  all  the  currents  of  Life  were  to  run  smooth,  and 
troubles  be  unknown.  But  this  sudden  inroad  of  Death  and  Mis- 
adventure had  changed  all  that;  and  while  he  had  to  acknowledge 
to  himself  that  his  affection  for  his  hosts  had  grown  much  greater 
since  they  became,  as  it  were,  human  as  well  as  merely  opulent  and 
amiable,  he  could  not  shut  his  eyes  to  the  fact  that  the  character 
of  his  visit  had  completely  changed.  Still  less  could  he  shut  his 
eyes  to  that  other  fact — that  he  really  wasn't  wanted.  Least  of 
all  when  he  found  grounds  for  suspecting  that  his  hostess  was 
writing  to  put  off  other  guests!  He  mooted  the  suggestion,  with 
all  due  round-abouting,  that  he  should  return  to  his  rooms  at  Cam- 
bridge to-morrow,  and  come  another  time. 

But  he  was  so  sorry  for  himself  that  the  Rector  saw  it,  and  good- 
naturedly  suggested  to  Mr.  Brownrigg  that  he  should  pay  him  a 
visit  at  the  Rectory  for  a  day  or  two  before  going  home.  Lady 
Murgatroyd  had  only  postponed  her  house-party  for  a  few  days, 
just  till  all  these  troubles  should  blow  over;  and  then,  who  knew 
but  what  Sir  Alfred  Chalis  would  at  least  be  well  enough  to  be 
moved  before  the  end  of  the  week?  Mr.  Brownrigg  accepted  the 
invitation  con  amore. 

And  then,  throughout  a  very  cheerless  and  oppressed  Sunday, 
slightly  alleviated  by  callers,  things  went  on  without  change. 
Judith  scarcely  left  her  room,  and  was  reticent.  Very  little  al- 
lusion was  made  to  yesterday's  events  by  the  other  members  of  the 
family  in  conversation  with  one  another.  It  rarely  went  beyond 
an  inquiry  whether  Challis  had  shown  any  sign  of  consciousness. 
None  of  the  family  appeared  at  Church — a  very  rare  event  in  the 
annals  of  Royd. 

Towards  Judith  the  attitude  of  her  mother  and  sister  was  a  per- 
fectly indescribable  compromise  between  toleration  and  exaspera- 
tion, good-will  towards  a  blood  relation  in  difficulties,  and  con- 
demnation without  benefit  of  clergy,  all  kept  in  abeyance  pending 
illumination.  Probably  the  freest  speech  on  the  matter  was  Lady 
Arkroyd's  to  the  Duchess,  when  the  latter,  having  been  told  all  the 
facts  in  full,  asked  in  her  brief,  incisive  way — which  none  but  a 
Duchess  could  have  resorted  to  without  seeming  questionable  form, 
dear!— "What  were  they  up  to,  Therese?  That's  the  point! "  and 
her  ladyship  replied :  "  Oh,  of  course  we  all  know  perfectly  well, 
Thyringia.  Only  nobody's  to  say  anything.  They  were  going  to 


650  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

take  the  wind  out  of  the  sails  of  this  precious  new  bit  of  legisla- 
tion by  going  through  a  ceremony,  at  any  rate.  ..." 

"I  see.  A  honeymoon  under  protest.  I  suppose  Judith  would 
have  come  back  here  and  said  nothing  about  it  ? " 

"  My  dear,  I  really  won't  undertake  to  say  what  Judith  would  or 
wouldn't  have  done.  She  would  have  had  to  come  back  for  her 
things,  anyhow ! " 

Thyringia  looked  amused.  Perhaps  she  was  canvassing  in  her 
mind  the  sorry  plight  of  a  thingless  bride.  Many  complications 
would  suggest  themselves  to  the  mind  of  a  Duchess  of  experi- 
ence. "  Not  so  much  as  a  tooth-brush,  poor  girl ! "  said  she. 
"  However,  she  could  have  bought  that  at  any  chemist's  shop. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  ? " 

"Why  should  we  do  anything?    If  that  Bill  passes  ..." 

"My  dear,  it  was  through  Committee  in  the  Lords  on  Friday 
afternoon.  The  Bishop  will  be  black  in  the  face  with  rage.  I 
shall  see  him  in  a  day  or  two,  and  be  able  to  twit  him.  Poor  Dr. 
Barham!  .  .  .  But  I  don't  see  that  there  can  be  any  marrying 
now — not  till  this  Sir  Alfred  gets  a  divorce.  .  .  .  Can  he?" 

"  No ;  he  has  the  most  exasperating  wife.  She  is  his  wife  now, 
or  will  be  on  Tuesday,  if  Murgatroyd  is  right!  And  she's  quite 
sans  reproche,  as  I  understand.  Isn't  it  a  nuisance?" 

"  Do  you  want  Judith  to  marry  this  man,  Therese  ? " 

"  My  dear ! — is  it  likely  ?  But  if  the  girl  has  set  her  heart  on 
him,  it  is  a  nuisance  to  have  him  married  to  a  woman  who  won't 
commit  anything  and  make  it  possible.  ..." 

"  Couldn't  he  force  her  to  divorce  him  by  .    .    .  ? " 

"By  committing  something  himself?  Oh  no! — she's  too  sharp 
for  that.  Of  course,  she  wants  to  pay  them  out,  and  make  it  all  as 
uncomfortable  as  possible.  I'm  sorry  for  Judith,  but  I  must  say 
it's  a  great  deal  her  own  fault.  Oh  dear! — why  cannot  people  be 
ordinary  and  reasonable  ?  Hush! — there  she  is.  ..." 

At  the  sound  of  an  identifying  skirt-rustle  descending  the  stairs, 
the  Duchess  dropped  her  voice  to  say  reflectively :  "  Yes — why  can't 
the  woman  misbehave  herself,  and  be  hanged  to  her?"  She  was 
silent  by  the  time  the  rustle  reached  the  door.  It  was  Judith,  self- 
possessed,  but  pallid,  who  met  a  cautious  half -approach  to  the  burn- 
ing subject  of  the  day  with,  "  Now  do,  dear  Duchess,  be  a  good 
woman,  and  don't  ask  me  questions  now.  I'm  coming  over  to-mor- 
row, and  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it.  ...  No,  really,  I  can't  tell 
you  about  it  now,  if  I  try;  it  only  makes  my  head  go  round." 

On  which  her  Grace,  telegraphed  to  aside  by  slightly  raised  eye- 
brows and  an  almost  unperceptible  shrug  of  Lady  Arkroyd's  shoul- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  651 

ders,  that  seemed  to  mean,  "You  see? — Judith  all  over.  I  told 
you !  "  merged  inquiry  in  mere  commiseration.  Oh  no — she  wasn't 
going  to  catechize  and  be  odious.  Poor  child!  How  ill  she  was 
looking!  And  no  wonder!  It  was  all  so  dreadful.  But,  at  any 
rate,  she,  Judith,  was  not  to  blame  for  this  terrible  mishap.  No 
one  would  ever  believe  that! 

"  I'm  not  so  sure  even  of  that  myself,"  said  the  young  lady 
wearily.  And  the  Duchess  made  a  mental  note  that  this  girl 
really  looked  her  loveliest  in  trouble.  But  this  girl  did  not  in- 
tend to  s'appuyer  on  the  topic.  She  had  only  come  in  just  to  say 
a  word  of  greeting,  and  that  she  would  come  over  to  Thanes  to- 
morrow. And  now  she  must  go  and  lie  down,  for  her  head  was 
simply  splitting.  No;  she  knew  Mr.  Taylor  was  in  the  next  room 
with  the  others,  but  she  couldn't  stay  to  talk  even  to  him.  Her 
mother  must  make  her  apologies.  For  this  was  in  what  was  re- 
garded as  the  confidential  room  of  the  house — the  little  cabinet  off 
the  first  staircase  landing,  with  the  suite  of  buhl  furniture  that 
belonged  to  Cardinal  Richelieu,  or  somebody;  and  the  cinquecento 
Milanese  armour,  made  for  Galeazzo  Sforza,  who  was  a  Monster  of 
Iniquity.  It  was  always  spoken  of  as  "  the  mezzanina  room." 

This  may  be  enough  to  make  it  understood  how  a  complete  rev- 
elation of  the  circumstances  preceding  the  accident  was  still  to  be 
made,  two  days  after  its  occurrence;  although  pretty  shrewd 
guesses  of  their  general  nature  were  afloat.  It  was  with  a  sense  of 
relief  that  Sir  Murgatroyd  said  to  his  wife,  as  they  came  away 
from  Challis's  side,  satisfied  that,  for  the  present  at  least,  his  re- 
vived powers  of  speech  had  lapsed,  "Judith  has  promised  to  tell 
me  the  whole."  And  it  was  with  a  sense  of  relief  that  her  mother 
heard  him.  For  the  doubt  of  what  story  might  be  still  to  come  was 
more  painful  than  any  probable  certainty  would  have  been. 

Down  in  the  village  and  round  the  Abbey  Well,  and  round  Mrs. 
Fox's  cottage  and  its  tenant  lying  dead,  survivors  of  the  Feudal 
System  hung  about  in  groups,  and  spoke  their  pristine  mother- 
tongue,  an  institution  that  has  not  been  Americanized  in  Royd,  so 
far.  If  that  tenant's  subtenant,  the  victim  or  "beneficiare  of  a  re- 
cent writ  of  ejectment,  was  also  hanging  about,  unseen  owing  to 
the  Nature  of  Things,  he  must  have  lamented  the  pain  he  was  giv- 
ing, and  the  trouble  his  survivors  were  having  with  his  residuum. 
Our  interpretation  of  Jim  Coupland's  character  favours  that  view, 
granting  the  needful  assumptions.  But,  of  course,  he  may  have 
been  extinct,  whatever  that  means.  Poor  Jim  I 


CHAPTER  LII 

OP  JUDITH'S  STATE  OF  MIND,  AND  HOW  SHE  TOLD  HER  FATHER.  BUT 
DID  NOT  IMPRESS  HIM  AS  HE  WOULD  HAVE  WISHED.  WHO  KNOWS 
WHAT  JUDITH  WAS?  OF  A  MYSTERIOUS  VISITOR  TO  THE  HALL.  HOW 
MO  ONE  RECOGNIZED  MARIANNE.  IS  MY  HUSBAND  DYING?  A 
SCENE  ON  THE  BIG  STAIRCASE,  AND  HOW  TWO  TOFFS  WERE  FAR  FROM 
ODIOUS.  HOW  THE  NURSE  RECOGNIZED  ATHELSTAN  TAYLOR.  HOW 
JUDITH  SAID  GOOD-BYE  TO  CHALLIS.  HOW  IT  CAME  OUT  WHO  MR. 
KEITH  HORNE'S  FRIEND  WAS 

A  SLEEPLESS  night  had  preceded  that  interview  between  Judith 
and  Challis,  and  she  was  not  at  her  best  when  his  wandering 
speech  and  cold  unrecognition  struck  a  chill  to  her  soul.  When  a 
like  event  occurs — and  it  does  chance,  now  and  again — between 
folk  who  have  been  linked  together  for  a  lifetime,  and  the  unin- 
jured survivor,  awaiting  with  the  return  of  consciousness  the  ac- 
cents and  the  look  of  the  affection  of  a  few  hours  ago,  is  repelled  by 
the  insensate  stare  of  eyes  that  only  see  a  stranger,  the  unim- 
'passioned  sound  of  a  voice  from  which  all  tenderness  has  vanished, 
even  then  the  trial  is  a  hard  one.  But  the  memory  of  the  past 
years  is  too  strong  to  allow  belief  that  the  thing  will  last — it  is  dis- 
missed as  a  passing  nightmare,  as  the  nurse  by  the  bedside  of 
fever  dismisses  the  wanderings  of  delirium.  It  will  last  its  time, 
and  pass  away  and  be  forgotten. 

A  cool  judgment  and  more  experience  might  have  told  the  girl 
to  bear  her  soul  in  patience;  to  treat  the  wanderings  of  a  brain 
shaken  as  Challis's  had  been  as  mere  sleep-waking.  But  even  had 
her  self-possession  been  at  its  best,  she  had  no  long-past  years 
of  love  to  look  back  to,  to  give  her  confidence  in  its  return  with  a 
returning  calm  of  health.  And  not  only  this,  but  these  same  wan- 
dering words  of  his  had  shown  how  full  his  soul  still  was  of  the 
past  in  which  she  had  no  share.  She  had  been  allowed  a  peep 
into  her  lover's  heart,  and  had  felt  the  force  of  another  love's  pre- 
occupation of  it.  If  only  his  utterances  had  been  stark  rambling, 
mere  Tom-of -Bedlam  incoherence!  But  the  worst  of  it  was,  their 
outward  form  was  clothed  in  such  a  terrible  sanity. 

There  was  one  thing  in  it  that  hit  very  hard — had  a  special 
sting  of  its  own.  Judith  knew  perfectly  well  about  Challis's  by- 

652 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  653 

gones.  He  had  taken  her  into  his  confidence  about  the  humble 
home  of  the  days  of  his  obscurity.  His  half -humorous  reviews  of 
his  past  had  shown  her  plainly  how  little  hold  his  first  wife  Kate — 
the  "  Ziz  "  of  his  novel — had  ever  had  upon  him.  He  had  evidently 
wedded  the  wrong  sister  first.  He  spoke  of  Bob's  mother  with  af- 
fection, certainly,  but  it  was  an  affection  that  was  artificial  and 
perfunctory,  whereas,  even  if  he  had  never  been  passionately  in  love 
with  Polly  Anne — if  no  volcanic  eruption  had  ever  raged  on  ac- 
count of  this  young  person,  whom  Judith  would  have  classed  as  an 
insignificant  puss — still,  that  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  seemed  to 
have  generated  something  that  was  at  least  a  very  good  working 
substitute  for  a  grande  passion.  What  was  the  worth  of  all  his 
protestations  to  her,  Judith,  if  this  memory  of  the  days  of  Great 
Coram  Street  was  to  be  the  first  resurrection  of  his  mind  from  its 
temporary  death? 

But  where  was  the  use  of  answering  the  question  now?  Or  any 
question  at  all,  for  that  matter?  Was  not  the  last  chance  gone  of 
passing  the  barrier  that  held  them  apart?  Well — she  had  kept  her 
share  of  the  compact.  "  I  am  ready,  if  it  can  be  arranged,"  she 
had  said.  And  she  had  complied  with  every  arrangement,  stip- 
ulating only  that  the  wedding  was  to  be  a  mere  legal  precaution — 
a  formal  bar  to  the  creation  of  a  new  obstacle  by  a  retrospective 
mood  of  the  Lords  and  Commons.  It  would  keep  the  position  un- 
altered; and  that  was  only  fair-play,  surely!  But  now  all  was 
changed.  She  had  always  been  alive  to  the  fact  that  Marianne  in 
esse,  legally  warranted  in  the  appropriation  of  her  husband's  chil- 
dren, and  canonically  warranted  in  her  paroxysm  of  sensitiveness 
to  consanguinity,  was  a  very  different  force  to  reckon  with  from 
Marianne  in  posse,  sained  and  assoilzied  by  an  Act  of  Parliament. 

Did  she,  we  may  wonder,  ask  herself  the  question:  If  it  were 
possible,  even  at  this  eleventh  hour,  to  get  that  knot  officially  tied, 
and  be  ready  to  laugh  at  the  "  retrospective  action  "  of  the  meas- 
ure that  would  be  the  Law  of  the  Land  in  forty-eight  hours,  would 
she  be  ready  to  jump  at  the  opportunity?  Or,  was  she  not  rather 
relieved  at  the  turn  things  had  taken?  However,  there  was  this 
to  be  considered: — if  the  motor  accident  had  not  happened,  and 
the  wedding  had  come  off,  she  would  never  have  had  to  face  that 
blank  stare  of  oblivion,  and  Great  Coram  Street!  Some  women 
won't  marry  a  widower  lest  too  many  tender  memories  should  still 
be  treasured  in  some  secret  corner  of  his  heart.  That  is  unrea- 
sonable ;  because  the  source  of  them  is  supposed  to  be  underground, 
or  in  Heaven,  or  in  Purgatory,  according  to  the  facon-de-parler  of 
the  moment.  But  .  .  .  Great  Coram  Street!  And  the  Deceased 


654  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Wife's  Sister  still  undeceased,  and  to  be  legalized  retrospectively 
on  Wednesday!  Be  it  noted,  though,  that  this  is  only  conjecture! 
The  story  has  no  warrant  for  saying  that  any  such  thought  crossed 
Judith's  mind. 

She  made  a  clean  breast  of  the  whole  matter  to  her  father.  She 
told  him  all  about  that  last  interview  of  hers  with  Challis  at 
Trout  Bend  three  or  four  weeks  since ;  and  of  the  arrangement  they 
had  made,  and  confirmed  by  subsequent  correspondence.  Challis 
was  to  reside  for  fifteen  days  at  some  place  far  enough  from  his  or 
her  ordinary  residence  to  insure  practical  secrecy,  where  there  was  a 
parish-priest  qualified  to  receive  his  affidavit  and  issue  an  ordinary 
marriage-licence.  "  I  forget  what  he  called  him,"  said  Judith. 
"  Something  like  Harrogate."  No  doubt  it  was  "  surrogate."  If 
in  Challis's  judgment  the  passing  of  the  Bill  should  be  put  beyond 
reasonable  doubt,  he  was  at  once  to  procure  this  licence,  and  make 
every  necessary  arrangement,  keeping  her  fully  informed.  He  had 
at  first  intended  to  procure  a  special  licence,  but  had  been  deterred 
by  someone  telling  him  that  such  a  licence  might  be  refused,  or  at 
least  delayed.  He  preferred  the  idea  of  dealing  with  a  country 
parson  with  whom  he  could  make  acquaintance,  and  to  whose  local 
charities  he  could  subscribe  liberally.  Besides,  he  could  mesmerize 
that  parson.  You  can't  mesmerize  Doctor's  Commons. 

The  young  lady  then  narrated,  almost  more  graphically  than 
seemed  quite  canny  under  her  circumstances,  her  reception  of  a 
telegram  the  previous  evening,  fixing  the  time  and  place  of  their 
meeting  in  accordance  with  the  terms  of  a  letter  of  her  own,  which 
had  told  how  her  brother-in-law  had  placed  the  automobile  at  her 
disposal.  She  described  the  meeting  at  the  Park  Gate,  minus  its 
salutations ;  the  rapid  spin  along  the  mile  of  road,  till  they  reached 
the  curve;  Challis's  appeal  to  the  chauffeur  for  caution,  and  M. 
Rossier's  contemptuous  disregard;  the  sudden  appearance  of  Jim 
as  the  car  whirled  round  the  corner;  and  how  Challis,  springing  to 
his  feet,  was  shot  straight  into  the  road  at  the  very  moment  when 
she  knew  well,  although  her  eyes  had  left  him,  that  Jim  was  under 
the  wheels;  and  then  her  own  dazed  condition,  that  almost  grew 
to  stupor  as  she  rode  back;  and  her  arrival  at  home,  when  her 
mother,  brought  out  by  Elphinstone,  simply  ran  back  terrified. 
The  Baronet  suspected  a  shade  of  exaggeration  here,  and  headed 
off  an  indictment  of  his  wife  for  panic. 

"But  why  the  motor-car  at  all?"  said  he. 

"We  turned  it  all  over,"  said  the  young  lady,  "and  could  see 
no  other  way.  The  railway  was  out  of  the  question.  ..." 

"Why?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  655 

"  Well — picture  me  to  yourself,  meeting  a  swarm  of  locals  on  the 
platform  at  Furnival.  And  fancy  my  asking  for  the  carriage! 
Where  should  I  have  said  I  was  going?  You've  no  idea,  papa 
dear,  what  a  poor  liar  I  am!  Not  because  I'm  truthful,  but  be- 
cause I'm  stupid.  Anyhow,  we  had  taken  the  trains  for  granted; 
and  when  it  came  to  Bradshaw,  we  found  that  to  get  to  this  ob- 
scure place  and  back  would  mean  eight  hours.  And  what  was 
worst  was  that  if  there  had  been  any  accident  or  delay  I  should 
have  been  stranded  till  next  day — at  the  Hare  and  Hounds  I  be- 
lieve it  would  have  been,  as  a  matter  of  fact — and  that  wouldn't 
have  suited  me  at  all.  ..." 

"Yes — yes — you  were  quite  right.  How  long  was  it  to  take 
with  the  motor  ?  " 

"Within  five  hours,  all  told.  An  hour  and  three-quarters  of 
car  each  way.  If  all  had  gone  well  ..." 

"  Why  did  Sir  Alfred  Challis  come  to  meet  you  ? " 

Judith  didn't  seem  over-clear  on  this  point.  "  He  made  believe," 
she  said,  "that  he  thought  we  should  lose  the  way.  But  I  don't 
believe  that  was  it.  I  believe  the  fun  of  the  ride  had  more  to  do 
with  it  than  anything." 

The  Baronet  seemed  a  little  froisse  by  something  in  his  daugh- 
ter's tone.  "It  has  been  a  sorry  piece  of  fun  for  him,"  said  he. 
"  And  for  you,  too,  my  girl."  For  he  was  almost  vexed  with 
himself  for  allowing  the  inception  of  a  thought  of  condemnation. 
See  how  much  she  must  have  suffered,  this  fool  of  a  daughter  of 
his! 

"Don't  pity  me!"  said  she.  "But  you  are  a  dear,  good  papa 
always."  There  was  something  in  this  of  her  old  tone  of  contrast- 
ing her  experience  with  his  simplicity.  This  belief  in  his  pastoral 
character  was  a  tradition  in  the  family. 

Perhaps  it  was  a  part  of  this  character  that  made  him  feel  that 
a  blank  was  being  left  in  their  conversation  that  at  least  called 
for  a  passing  word  to  fill  it  in.  "  This  poor  fellow's  death  ..." 
he  began,  taking  for  granted  that  Jim  Coupland's  share  in  the 
tragedy  would  be  as  prominent  in  his  daughter's  mind  as  his  own. 
But  she  stopped  him  with  an  exclamation  of  alarm  as  he  hesitated. 

"  Why  should  he  die  ? "  she  cried.  "  There  is  no  chance  of  his 
death.  See  what  the  doctors  said — both  of  them.  ..." 

He  interrupted  her.  "  I  was  not  speaking  of  Sir  Alfred.  I  was 
speaking  of  Jim  Coupland — the  blind  man,  who  was  killed — is  it 
possible  you  do  not  know  that  he  died  ? "  For,  to  hear  her  speak, 
no  one  could  have  dreamed  she  knew  of  that  sombre  background 
to  a  sad  day's  work,  the  man  lying  dead  near  at  hand. 


656  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"Jim  Coup] and!"  she  repeated;  and  the  tone  of  her  reply 
grated  on  her  father,  to  whom  the  thought  of  Jim's  death  was  an 
ever-present  burden.  Again  she  repeated,  "  Jim  Coupland !  "  with 
a  fuller  stress  on  each  syllable  that  all  but  seemed  contempt. 
"  Yes — but  what  is  Jim  Coupland  .  .  .  compared  to  .  .  .  ? " 
Then  she  qualified  her  words :  "  Oh,  well,  of  course,  one  feels  all 
that  I  suppose  one  ought  to  feel,  but  ..." 

"What  what?" 

"But  it's  no  use  pretending.  ..." 

"  My  dear  Judith,  I  don't  understand." 

"My  dear  papa,  do  you  mean  to  say  that  if  you  were  in  my 
place  .  .  .  However,  it  really  is  no  use  talking  about  it."  Her 
manner  was  excited  and  resentful,  till  she  suppressed  it  with  an 
effort,  and  calmed  down  to  say :  "  Suppose  we  don't  talk  about  it ! " 

There  was  a  symptom  of  indignation  in  her  father's  tone  as  he 
replied :  "  We  shall  gain  nothing  by  talking  at  all,  Judith,  if  I  am 
right  about  your  meaning.  I  may  be  wrong,  my  dear  " — he  soft- 
ened rather — "  but  what  you  seem  to  me  to  mean,  by  the  way 
you  speak  about  this  poor  fellow's  shocking  death,  is  ...  well! 
— in  short,  is,  that  you  are  indifferent  to  it." 

"  Is  it  so  very  surprising  ?  Would  you  not  think  me  a  hypocrite 
if  I  were  to  profess  to  be  heart-broken  about  this — this  wretched 
blind  cripple,  who  was  the  cause  of  it  all  ? " 

This  took  place  in  the  garden,  where  the  father  and  daughter 
had  walked  apart,  to  be  alone,  away  from  the  house.  Judith  had 
really  been  as  anxious  to  speak  with  him  as  he  with  her.  But  she 
was  not  in  love  with  this  turn  in  the  conversation.  As  she  stood 
with  bitten  lip  and  flashing  eye  in  front  of  the  wires  of  a  cage  con- 
taining a  sulphur-crested  cockatoo — for  they  were  close  to  the 
aviary  where  she  and  Challis  had  talked  about  the  parroquets — a 
hideous  shriek  from  the  bird  caught  her  last  words,  and  almost 
seemed  a  vindictive  endorsement  of  their  spirit. 

Her  father,  to  whom  the  death  of  the  innocent  man  was  a  thing 
that  threw  all  other  disquiets  into  the  shade,  suppressed  whatever 
he  felt  of  resentment  or  disgust,  and  showed  only  wonderment. 
"  My  dear  child,"  said  he,  "  you  are  not  yourself.  If  you  were, 
you  could  not  say  such  things.  I  can  hardly  believe  that  you 
realize  that  the  man  is  dead  when  you  speak  so."  He  stopped  a 
moment,  puzzled.  "I  suppose,  though,  he  must  have  been  still 
alive  when  you  last  saw  him  ? " 

"  Oh  yes,  he  was  shouting.  But  I  knew  he  went  under  the 
wheel.  I  felt  him."  Her  father  shuddered,  but  she  seemed  calm. 

"Did  you  not  see  him  again?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  657 

"No — that  was  the  last  I  saw  of  him.  I  never  looked  for 
him.  .  .  .  Well!— I  thought  Sir  Alfred  Challis  was  killed." 

The  Baronet  felt  apologetic.  "I  see,  my  dear,  of  course!  Yes 
— yes — that  would  be  so.  I  suppose  the  poor  fellow  must  have  had 
life  enough  in  him  to  get  off  the  road  .  .  .  only  .  .  .  well! — 
I  don't  understand  ..." 

"  What  doesn't  my  papa  understand  ? "  There  is  again  the 
shade  of  the  old  family  tradition  of  patronage  in  her  voice.  Dis- 
inclination to  accept  it  in  this  case  may  have  roughened  her  father's 
reply  a  little : 

"  I  don't  understand  what  Taylor  said.  I'm  sure — yes,  I'm  sure ! 
— he  said  he  found  him  lying  in  the  road.  You  must  have  passed 
him  as  you  returned  ? " 

"  Very  likely." 

"  Judith !  "  This  was  sudden  remonstrance,  almost  anger.  But 
it  softened  as  it  had  done  before.  "Well — well — perhaps  it  was 
only  natural  ...  of  course,  I  am  forgetting  ..." 

"Perhaps  what  was  only  natural?  .  .  .  Oh  dear! — well,  of 
course  I  know  what  you  mean — my  not  being  able  to  go  into  hys- 
terics over  this  man's  death.  The  circumstances  are  what  I  believe 
are  called  touching,  no  doubt,  but  ..." 

The  Baronet  was  flushed,  and  quite  angry  at  this.  "  The  circum- 
stances are  what  are  rightly  called  touching,"  he  said.  "  Poor 
Jim  Coupland  was  coming  out  to  meet  him — so  I  understood  the 
Rector — in  the  full  expectation  that  he  was  bringing  that  dear  little 
girl  of  his  back  to  him.  And  he  was  only  bringing  the  news  of  her 
death.  .  .  .  What  did  you  say?  ..."  For  Judith  had  mut- 
tered sotto  voce  that  then  it  didn't  matter.  But  she  did  not  repeat 
it,  saying  only,  "  I  said  nothing." 

Her  father  did  not  believe  this,  and  the  end  of  his  sentence  hung 
fire,  he  looking  doubtful.  So  Judith  repeated  his  last  words,  to 
start  him  fresh.  "'He  was  only  bringing  the  news  of  the  little 
girl's  death'  .  .  .  you  were  saying?  ..." 

"  Yes ! — the  news  of  her  death.  And  then  this  damnable  motor- 
car of  yours  comes  tearing  round  the  corner,  with  its  damned  hoot- 
ing, and  he's  under  the  wheels  in  a  moment!  I  shall  tell  Frank  I 
won't  have  the  thing  in  the  house  again,  once  he's  taken  it  away. 
It's  simply  a  horror  and  an  abomination.  ..."  And  so  on.  He 
was  in  want  of  a  safety-valve,  and  here  it  was.  The  fact  was 
that  Judith's  apathy  about  poor  Jim  had  made  him  feel  thoroughly 
uncomfortable;  it  was  so  unlike  his  measure  and  conception  of 
what  his  family  ought  to  be. 

As  for  Judith,  she  may  have  felt  that  sort  of  alarm  at  this 


658  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

impetuous  utterance  that  a  child  will  remain  susceptible  of  in  later 
years,  who  would  laugh  at  any  like  explosion  of  a  non-parent.  It 
is  an  inheritance  from  the  nursery.  Impressed  by  her  father's  de- 
nunciation of  the  motor-car,  or  possibly  thinking  to  herself,  "  No 
more  scenes,  for  Heaven's  sake ! "  she  relaxed  so  far  as  to  say, 
formally,  "  I'm  sorry  for  the  little  girl."  But  she  spoiled  whatever 
there  was  of  graceful  in  a  grudging  concession  by  adding,  "Per- 
haps that  will  satisfy  you  ? " 

The  old  gentleman  said  nothing,  but  looked  at  her,  puzzled  and 
hurt  at  what  he  shrank  from  thinking  her  heartlessness ;  trying  to 
concoct  excuses  for  it  that  would  make  her  seem  less  ungracious. 
For  he  loved  this  daughter  of  his,  so  much  so  that  even  now  he 
felt  proud  of  her  rich  beauty,  none  the  worse  for  all  her  stress  and 
trouble.  Indeed,  as  she  stood  there,  caressing  the  great  white  bird 
that  had  shrieked — she  had  taken  it  as  she  spoke  from  its  cage, 
and  was  kissing  its  terrifying  beak  with  tenderness — her  black 
mass  of  hair  against  its  yellow  crest;  her  ivory-white  skin  against 
the  driven  snow  of  its  feathers,  each  made  whiter  in  its  own  way 
by  yet  another  white,  the  soft  folds  of  a  creamy  summer  dress 
most  late  Augusts  would  have  condemned;  her  beautiful  hand  in 
the  sun,  with  the  bird's  black  claw  upon  its  jewels — all  these 
might  have  said  a  word  in  arrest  of  judgment  to  a  parent  readier 
to  disbelieve  in  his  daughter  than  Sir  Murgatroyd.  No  doubt  they 
influenced  him  to  think  that  he  had  succeeded  in  glossing  over  what 
he  would  have  condemned  as  callousness  in  one  further  away  from 
him.  But  she — as  other  father's  daughters  are — was  his  little  girl 
of  twenty  years  ago  grown  up.  She  did  not  really  mean  this  heart- 
lessness, thought  he;  it  was  a  sort  of  parti  pris — a  parade,  an  af- 
fectation ! 

Was  he  right,  after  all?  Is  the  story  wrong  in  its  estimate 
of  her  ?  Has  it  laid  too  much  stress  on  the  hard  side  of  this  girl's 
character — its  vanity  and  love  of  power?  Some  moralist  has  said 
that  no  mortal  should  be  called  heartless  as  long  as  he  or  she  can 
fall  in  love.  Judith  Arkroyd  must  have  been  in  love  with  Alfred 
Challis ;  for  see  what  risks  she  was  running  to  secure  him !  Why — 
yes! — to  secure  him;  that  was  just  it.  She  wanted  him,  and  took 
the  only  road  to  possession  that  seemed  open  to  her.  Now  if,  when 
he  lay  insensible,  that  time  when  there  was  none  to  see,  she  had 
only  stooped  to  kiss  the  inanimate  hand,  had  even  held  it  till  the 
nurse  returned!  Should  we  not  have  felt  more  sorrow  for  her 
after  that,  when  his  returning  speech  showed  how  completely  she 
had,  for  the  moment,  passed  from  his  mind  ?  No  doubt  she  was  in 
love  with  him,  in  one  manner  of  loving.  But  there  are  so  many! 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  659 

This  story  is  not  going  to  break  its  heart  about  her — to  chant 
dirges  over  the  grave  of  her  share  of  this  grande  passion.  And 
its  commiseration  for  her  grows  no  mellower  from  dwelling  on  the 
fact  it  has  to  record :  that  exasperation  against  poor  Jim  Coupland, 
to  whom  she  thought  proper  to  ascribe  the  whole  miscarriage  of 
the  scheme,  was  really  a  source  of  relief  to  her — a  sort  of  counter- 
irritant.  To  her  father,  Jim's  death  and  his  child's  filled  the  whole 
horizon — a  black  cloud.  Challis's  mishap  he  did  not  distress  him- 
self about;  he  would  be  all  right  presently — had  he  not  spoken? 
As  for  his  loss  of  memory,  that  meant  nothing.  Did  he  not  him- 
self, when  he  came  round  after  his  mishap,  ask  whether  "the 
trout "  had  been  taken,  meaning  the  fox  ?  Loss  of  memory  was 
the  rule,  not  the  exception,  in  such  cases.  And  as  for  the  future  of 
Challis  and  Judith,  that  was  a  difficulty  there  must  be  some  legal 
way  out  of.  It  was  incredible  that  Challis's  wife  should  go  on 
holding  him  at  arm's  length,  and  yet  bar  his  union  with  another 
woman.  Some  solution  of  that  problem  could  be  found,  Bill  or  no 
Bill!  As  for  opposing  his  daughter's  wishes,  if  they  were  really 
deep-rooted,  that  he  would  not  do.  All  his  opposition  to  Challis 
hitherto  had  been  to  him  as  Marianne's  husband.  If  their  mar- 
riage could  be  legally  annulled  or  dissolved,  he  was  not  going  to 
stand  in  the  way  of  his  daughter's  happiness. 

But  this  anger  of  hers  against  Jim  showed  her  as  a  new  Judith, 
whom  he  had  never  suspected  the  existence  of.  In  her  childhood 
she  had  been  proud  and  domineering  with  her  brothers  and  sisters 
— two  elder  brothers  had  died  in  the  army,  and  a  sister  was  mar- 
ried in  India;  none  of  them  have  crossed  this  story — but  not,  so 
far  as  her  father  knew,  malignant  or  revengeful.  It  gave  him  a 
great  discomfort  at  heart;  set  him  wondering  which  of  her  an- 
cestors on  either  side  she  had  harked  back  to.  Was  it  Josceline  de 
Varennes,  who,  in  one  of  those  spirited  middle  ages,  hid  a  knife 
iinder  her  bridal  pillow  and  gave  her  first  husband  a  warm  recep- 
tion to  his  couch,  in  order  that  she  should  marry  Hugh  Arkroyd? 
There  was  the  knife,  to  prove  it,  in  the  glass  cabinet  with  the 
green-dragon  china  service.  But — as  long  ago  as  King  Stephen! 
Oh  no ! — it  was  that  old  fiend  of  a  great-grandmother  of  Therese's. 
Every  old  family  has  an  ancestral  scapegoat,  and  a  certain  "  Lady 
Sarah,"  of  the  days  of  the  second  George,  was  very  popular  in  this 
one. 

But  Sir  Murgatroyd  scarcely  did  more  than  seek  for  the  scape- 
goat, in  case  he  should  be  forced  to  condemn  this  member  of  the 
congregation.  He  did  not  pass  sentence.  He  only  said  gently, 
"You  will  feel  differently,  Judith  dear,  when  you  are  yourself 


660  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

again.  All  this  has  upset  you."  In  reply  to  which  the  young  lady 
said  wearily,  "  We  shall  see,  I  suppose,  presently.  I  can't  be  very 
demonstrative  about  either  now,  though  of  course  it's  very  sad, 
and  so  on,  about  the  little  girl."  And  then  she  talked  to  the  parrot, 
kissing  him  and  calling  him  her  darling,  and  saying  now  he  must 
go  back  in  his  wicked  cruel  cage.  All  which  her  father  set  down 
to  mere  bravado,  and  thought  it  best  to  say  no  more  to  her  in  her 
present  mood.  But  he  had  a  very  serious  look  on  his  face  as  they 
walked  towards  the  house  together. 

It  was  a  relief  to  him  to  hear  the  robust  musical  voice  of  the 
Hector  in  the  large  drawing-room  that  opened  on  the  lawn,  which 
was  their  most  natural  way  back  into  the  house.  But  Judith 
paused  on  the  terrace.  "  Oh  dear ! "  said  she.  "  There's  our 
Father  Confessor!  I  can't  stand  sympathy,  and  I  don't  want  to 
be  catechized,  thank  you!  Be  a  dear  good  papa,  and  say  pretty 
things  for  me !  "  And  then,  in  spite  of  an  attempt  at  remonstrance 
by  her  father,  slipped  away;  going  round  by  a  side-terrace  that, 
ending  at  the  house-corner  in  a  vague  architectural  effort  three  cen- 
turies old — a  Nereid  and  a  Triton  and  a  sink,  with  an  Ionic  canopy 
over  all  to  keep  the  rain  off — allowed  of  an  approach  to  the  main 
facade  of  the  house,  and  the  carriage-drive  through  the  beech  ave- 
nue in  the  Park. 

But  she  did  not  at  once  carry  out  her  scheme  of  escape.  The 
shadow  of  the  Ionic  canopy  was  sweet  on  the  base  of  the  sink,  and 
the  seat  it  made  was  tempting,  and  the  cleanness  of  its  moss  and 
lichens  acceptable  even  to  a  skirt  of  crepe-de-Chine.  It  was  only 
an  old  dress,  too,  according  to  Judith's  ideas,  so  she  spent  a  little 
time  with  the  Triton  and  the  Nereid  before  going  on  into  the 
house.  She  felt  stunned  and  bewildered,  for  all  she  had  shown  so 
bold  a  front,  and  was  glad  of  rest. 

Presently  her  desire  to  know  that  Challis  was  progressing  got 
the  better  of  a  terror  that  was  on  her  that  his  oblivion  might  be 
lasting.  She  could  hear  the  voices  of  the  party  in  the  drawing- 
room  still  in  conversation,  the  Rector's  very  distinctly;  so  she  de- 
cided that  she  could  slip  indoors  with  safety,  and  rose  to  go. 

A  little  diffident  gate,  that  had  shrunk  away  into  the  heart  of 
a  yew  hedge,  led  out  to  the  drive  and  entrance  to  the  house;  and 
one  could  see  and  not  be  seen  there,  even  by  visitors  who  had  been 
over  the  ground  before.  Judith  stopped  at  this  gate,  not  to  be 
caught  by  an  early  sample,  unexplained.  It  was  not  yet  twelve 
o'clock,  and  there  at  the  door  was  a  vehicle  with  one  horse,  steam- 
ing. And  a  lady  in  black  was  descending  from  it,  and  Samuel 
evidently  meant  to  let  her  in.  Judith  waited  for  her  to  vanish; 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  661 

gave  her  ample  time,  more  than  enough,  to  be  shown  into  the 
drawing-room,  and  then  went  straight  on  to  the  house. 

The  vehicle  was  a  hired  fly  from  Furnival,  whose  driver  Judith 
at  once  recognized  as  an  habitue  of  the  railway-station.  He  was 
mopping  his  brow  with  his  handkerchief,  for  the  morning  had  be- 
come very  hot;  but  he  put  his  hat  on  to  touch  it  to  Miss  Arkroyd, 
who  of  course  was  very  familiar  to  him.  Having  done  this,  he 
took  it  off  again,  and  went  on  mopping.  He  referred  to  the  dry- 
ness  of  this  sort  of  day  pointedly;  but  Judith  missed  his  sub- 
intent,  and  conceived  that  the  position  was  covered  by  the  approach 
of  Bullett  the  groom,  with  a  pail  of  water  for  the  horse.  The 
lady  must  have  come  straight  from  the  train. 

Judith  looked  through  the  glass  door — as  she  thought,  carefully 
— to  make  sure  the  great  hall  at  the  foot  of  the  stairs  was  empty. 
She  was  quite  without  conjecture  or  suspicion  as  to  who  the  vis- 
itor was,  or  she  might  not  have  contented  herself  so  easily  that  the 
coast  was  clear.  Anyhow,  there  was  no  one  visible  from  where  she 
stood  and  looked  through.  So  she  passed  in  and  walked  straight 
across  to  the  stairs,  and  so  up  to  the  first  landing.  As  she  turned 
the  angle,  she  saw  a  lady  in  black,  whom  she  did  not  recognize, 
seated  in  the  recess  on  the  left,  who  rose  when  their  eyes  met. 
Not  a  bad-looking  woman,  of  a  sort,  but  not  self-explanatory. 

Count  over  the  times  Judith  had  met  Marianne.  They  do  not 
amount  to  much — at  least,  until  that  evening  at  the  theatre.  Two 
dinners  and  a  visit  in  London  a  couple  of  years  ago — consider  how 
little  that  means  to  a  young  lady  who  may  be  under  an  equal  social 
obligation  to  remember  half-a-dozen  new  faces  every  day!  Con- 
sider, too,  that  in  this  early  time  Mr.  Challis  was  in  the  eyes  of  this 
young  lady  nothing  beyond  a  popular  author  whose  works  she 
hadn't  read ;  and  as  for  his  wife,  why  should  she  notice  her  at  all  ? 
"Which  was  she,  Sib?"  we  can  fancy  her  asking.  Was  she,  for 
instance,  the  underdressed  one  with  the  mole,  or  the  rawboned 
giggler?  Then,  as  to  that  visit  to  the  play  a  few  months  later, 
think  of  the  exciting  pre-occupations !  Is  it  certain  that  Miss 
Arkroyd  paid  as  much  attention  to  her  hostess  as  you  and  I  might 
have  thought  the  circumstances  demanded?  Anyhow,  there  had 
been  nothing  to  fix  Marianne  in  Judith's  memory  to  such  an  extent 
that  she  should  recall  at  once  the  travel-worn — and  trouble-worn — 
face  she  hardly  glanced  at,  and  would  have  left  without  a  sec- 
ond look  had  its  owner  not  risen,  as  though  to  speak.  She  might 
have  done  so,  nevertheless,  if  it  had  not  been  for  something  in  the 
visitor's  action  which  suggested  a  lady  kept  outside  the  drawing- 
room  rather  than  a  person  allowed  inside  the  house.  You  know  the 


662  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

sort  of  difference — the  difference  between  subservient  conciliation 
and  conciliatory  self-assertion. 

What  caught  and  retained  Judith's  second  look  was  that  this 
person  answered  to  neither  description.  Her  manner  was  sui 
generis,  and  the  genus  had  in  it  a  touch  of  something  odd  that 
wasn't  insanity.  Was  it  desperation?  It  was  creditable  to 
Judith's  penetration  that  she  at  once  dismissed  the  only  idea  that 
suggested  itself.  An  image  shot  into  her  mind  of  Jim  Coupland's 
sister,  employed  as  cook  by  Challis,  humorously  described  by  him 
more  than  once.  Stuff  and  nonsense! — out  of  the  question! 

"  Are  you  .  .  .  being  attended  to  ? "  She  threw  a  slight  smile 
of  protest  into  the  question,  to  guard  against  the  possibility  of 
wrong  form.  If  she  had  mistaken  the  facts,  her  hearer  would  un- 
derstand the  implication  of  courtesy — no  fear  of  misunderstanding 
between  its! 

"  The  young  man  went  in.  I  can  wait."  The  speaker  looked 
away  from  Miss  Arkroyd.  Her  manner  was  not  conciliatory.  But 
even  then  no  idea  crossed  Judith's  mind  of  who  she  actually  was. 
In  fact,  prohibitives  were  at  every  point  of  the  compass.  How 
could  the  news  have  reached  Marianne?  How  could  she  have 
come  so  quick  to  Royd  ? 

"Is  it  anything  I  can  do?"  This  was  bald  civility  on  the 
face  of  it;  almost  stipulated  that  it  should  be  refused.  The 
speaker's  arrested  foot  on  the  next  stair  waited  to  go  up  when 
the  refusal  should  warrant  it.  But  it  had  to  wait,  long  enough  to 
make  its  owner  wonder  what  was  coming. 

"Yes! — you  can,  Miss  Arkroyd."  Judith's  good  breeding  con- 
cealed her  surprise.  She  stood  committed,  and  awaited  the  instruc- 
tion. Was  this  tiresome  person  going  to  give  it,  or  be  choked  by 
it?  It  came  at  last.  "You  can  tell  me  whether  my  husband  is 
dying  or  not." 

And  then  Judith  knew  that  she  was  face  to  face  with  Marianne 
Challis,  the  woman  she  had  injured. 

Sir  Murgatroyd  found  his  wife  talking  with  Athelstan  Taylor, 
of  course  about  the  current  events.  "  This  is  good  news  about 
Challis,"  said  the  Rector.  "  Lady  Arkroyd  tells  me  he  has  recov- 
ered consciousness." 

The  Baronet  demurred  slightly.  "Ye-es.  At  least,  he  has 
spoken." 

"And  not  incoherently?" 

"  N-no.  Oh  no — not  incoherently."  But  the  stress  on  this  word 
had  reservation  in  it,  and  her  ladyship  exclaimed  impatiently, 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  663 

"  Oh,  my  dear,  you  always  make  the  worst  of  everything !  "  A  pity- 
ing smile,  aside  to  the  Rector,  was  quite  a  little  essay  on  the  un- 
reasonableness of  husbands — that  intractable  class.  Mr.  Taylor 
looked  from  one  to  the  other.  It  would  be  early  to  take  sides,  but 
of  course  the  prescribed  form  in  such  a  case  is  to  help  the  wife  to 
commiserate  her  mate's  shortcomings.  It  was  safest  to  endorse  the 
lady's  view,  provisionally. 

"  We  mustn't  expect  too  much  at  first,"  said  he,  deprecating  the 
crude  judgment  of  inexperience,  a  quality  common  to  all  our  fam- 
ily except  ourself.  "  The  author  won't  be  in  trim  for  dictating 
copy  for  some  days  to  come,  I'm  afraid."  He  hesitated  a  moment, 
before  adding,  "You  have  kept  it  from  him,  I  suppose,  for  the 
present  ? " 

"  Mr.  Taylor  is  referring  to  poor  Coupland's  death,  my  dear," 
said  the  Baronet.  Which  his  wife  resented  slightly,  as  suggest- 
ing that  her  sympathies  needed  a  stimulus.  "  Do  you  suppose  I 
don't  understand  that,  my  dear?"  said  she  sotto  voce;  a  reply 
apart.  But  she  might  just  as  well  have  left  the  matter  to  stand 
there,  and  not  let  herself  be  betrayed  into  a  candid  admission  that, 
in  view  of  the  sad  end  of  poor  little  Lizarann,  her  father's  death 
almost  assumed  the  form  of  a  Merciful  Dispensation.  We  should 
be  thankful,  at  least,  that  he  had  been  spared  the  hearing  of  it. 

"  The  whole  thing  has  been  terribly  sad,"  said  Athelstan  Taylor. 
Indeed,  he  seemed  as  if  he  could  hardly  bear  to  speak  of  it.  He 
turned  from  the  subject  abruptly.  When  could  he  look  forward 
to  seeing  Challis  without  danger  of  his  hurting  himself  by  talk- 
ing? 

Sir  Murgatroyd  looked  inquiry  at  his  wife,  and  she  at  him. 
Then  he  took  the  reply  on  himself,  as  she  seemed  very  doubtful. 
"  The  fact  is,  Rector,"  said  he,  "  it  isn't  by  any  means  certain  that 
he  would  know  you.  He  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  come  to  him- 
self yet.  What  he  said  to  .  .  ." 

"What  he  said  to  the  nurse  was  hardly  sense,"  Lady  Arkroyd 
struck  in  abruptly.  No  doubt  she  wanted  to  keep  Judith  out  of 
it.  But  Sir  Murgatroyd  held  to  his  purpose — would  have  no  eva- 
sion or  prevarication. 

"I  was  not  referring  to  what  he  said  to  the  nurse,  my  dear 
Therese.  I  was  going  on  to  speak  of  what  he  said  to  Judith. 
What  did  he  say  to  the  nurse  ?  " 

"  Oh,  I  don't  know !  Tell  it  your  own  way."  Lady  Arkroyd 
abdicates. 

Her  husband  did  not  notice  her  impatience,  but  continued :  "  It 
happened  that  my  daughter  was  present  when  he  showed  con- 


664  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

sciousness,  and  he  did  not  recognize  her,  and  asked  for  his  wife.  It 
was  a  very  singular  thing,  too,  that  when  Judith  told  him  we  did 
not  know  where  to  write  to  her,  he  gave  the  address  he  lived  at 
several  years  ago.  But  I  cannot  say  that  seems  to  me  so  strange 
as  his  non-recognition  of  Judith,  considering  ..." 

"  My  dear!  "  from  the  lady,  remonstratively. 

But  the  Baronet  sticks  to  his  colours,  though  he  speaks  tem- 
perately. "  My  dear  Therese,  Mr.  Taylor  is  so  old  a  friend  that  I 
really  do  think  it  would  be  absurd  to  make  any  secrets.  After  all, 
what  does  the  whole  thing  amount  to?  .  .  ."  Here  the  Rector 
interrupted  him. 

"  I  think  it's  only  fair  of  me,  Lady  Arkroyd,  to  say  that  I  know 
all  about  it  already.  This  poor  chap — I'm  not  going  to  say  a 
word  in  defence  of  him — took  me  into  his  confidence  some  weeks 
ago.  That  is  to  say,  he  sketched  as  possible  the  scheme  which  I 
now  see  he  and  Judith  must  have  attempted  to  carry  out.  I  tried 
to  dissuade  him  from  it,  and,  indeed,  fancied  he  had  given  it 
up.  .  .  .  No;  I  thought  it  best  to  hold  my  tongue  about  it,  in 
order  to  retain  my  influence  with  him.  He  had  been  speaking 
freely  to  me,  assuming  that  what  he  said  would  go  no  farther,  and 
I  should  only  have  lost  my  hold  over  him  by  talking  to  you  of  it, 
without  any  corresponding  gain."  This  was  in  answer  to  what 
was  evidently  the  beginning  of  a  question :  "  Why  was  the 
knowledge  of  this  plan  to  be  kept  from  us?  " 

However,  the  Baronet  was  ready  with  ungrudging  admission  that 
the  Rector  had  acted  for  the  best;  his  wife  with  a  rather  more 
stinted  allowance  of  assent.  Of  course,  Judith  would  have  gone 
her  own  way  in  any  case  .  .  .  but  still !  .  .  .  "  Are  we  not  her 
parents?  Should  we  not  have  been  told  on  principle?"  seemed 
to  be  an  implication  lurking  behind  lips  that  had  shut  it  in,  and 
leaking  out  through  a  stirring  of  the  eyebrows.  Her  husband, 
averse  to  reserves,  and  noting  this  one,  said,  "  What  were  you  go- 
ing to  say,  Therese  ?  " 

But  Therese  said,  "  Do  wait,  my  dear ! "  to  him,  and  to  the  Rec- 
tor, "Would  you  excuse  me  one  moment?  .  .  .  What  is  it, 
Samuel  ? "  The  last  was  because  Samuel  was  in  the  room  with  a 
card  on  a  hand-tray,  to  be  dealt  with  furtively,  if  possible,  its 
bearer's  mission  in  life  being  self-subordination.  Being  called  on 
to  state  what  it  was,  he  said  it  was  a  lady,  and  might  she  speak 
to  her  ladyship  for  a  moment.  This  was  a  metaphrasis,  because  it 
was  palpably  a  card,  on  which  her  ladyship  read  to  herself  the 
name  "  Mrs.  M.  Craik,"  and  seemed  none  the  wiser.  Then  she 
handed  it  to  Sir  Murgatroyd,  who  took  his  glasses  to  the  reading 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  665 

of  it,  and  said,  "No,  I  don't  know  the  name."  Whereupon  her 
ladyship  said,  "  I  suppose  I  must  see  her.  You'll  excuse  me,  Mr. 
Taylor  ? "  and  departed,  after  instructions  to  Samuel  about  the 
room  the  lady  was  to  be  shown  into. 

Now,  if  she  had  read  the  name  aloud,  the  chances  are  that 
Athelstan  Taylor,  who  had  a  lively  enough  recollection  of  his  visit 
of  intercession  to  Marianne's  mother  a  year  ago,  would  have  re- 
membered it.  And  then  Lady  Arkroyd  would  have  known  before- 
hand who  it  was  she  was  on  her  way  to  interview. 

As  it  was,  6he  continued  quite  in  the  dark  about  the  identity  of 
"Mrs.  M.  Craik,"  until,  following  Samuel  at  what  she  thought  a 
sufficient  interval  to  allow  of  his  disposing  of  the  stranger  as  ar- 
ranged, she  came  out  upon  a  scene  at  the  stairfoot  in  the  entrance- 
hall  that  taxed  her  presence  of  mind;  with  a  result  that  was  not 
an  uncommon  one  with  her,  that  she  could  see  no  way  of  meeting 
the  demand  upon  it,  except  by  an  appeal  to  her  husband  to  rescue 
her.  For,  ready  as  she  always  was  to  set  his  judgment  aside  when 
doing  so  involved  her  in  no  difficulty,  she  always  looked  to  him  to 
extricate  her  when  she  found  herself  in  a  bad  one. 

"  Oh,  thank  God  if  he  is  living  .  .  .  if  he  is  only  living  to 
speak  to  me  once  .  .  .  just  once!  Oh,  do  say  again  that  he  is 
not  dead.  I  will  never  think  ill  of  you  again.  Oh,  do  let  me  go 
to  him  where  he  is  now.  ..."  Thus  far  the  poor  soul  had 
spoken  through  a  deluge  of  tears,  when  Lady  Arkroyd  came  out 
from  a  side-door,  and  her  mind  said  to  her  that  if  it  was  to  be 
hysterics,  she  did  wish  Sir  Murgatroyd  would  come.  But  as  to 
exactly  who  this  was,  this  female  in  black  who  was  making  a  scene 
gratuitously,  the  thing  of  all  others  her  ladyship  hated,  she  was 
for  the  moment  quite  at  a  loss  to  guess.  Of  course,  a  moment's 
reflection  would  have  made  it  clear,  but,  you  see,  she  was  so  totally 
unprepared.  Her  first  information  as  to  whom  she  was  speaking 
with — seeing  that  she  was  as  much  at  sea  about  Marianne's  per- 
sonal identity  as  Judith  had  been  at  first — came  from  her  daughter, 
standing  handsome  and  impassive  on  the  stairs,  above  this  excited 
woman ;  making  her  seem  a  suppliant  by  her  own  unmoved  placid- 
ity, and  herself  almost  cruel  by  the  severity  of  the  contrast. 

"  This  is  Lady  Challis,  mamma."  Judith's  speech  quite  ignores 
the  tension  of  the  situation — passes  it  by.  "  She  wishes  to  go  to 
Sir  Alfred.  Is  there  any  objection  ? "  What  can  it  matter  to  the 
speaker? — is  the  implication.  Let  her  go  to  Sir  Alfred,  by  all 
means ! 

Her  mother's  breath  is  fairly  taken  away.  u  Lady  Challis ! " 
she  repeats.  And  then,  as  silence  seems  to  wait  for  something  else, 


666  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

the  blankest  interjection :  "  Oh-h-h ! "  with  the  minimum  of  mean- 
ing sound  can  convey 

Then  poor  Marianne,  with  no  Charlotte  at  hand  to  suggest  pos- 
sible ugly  interpretations,  bursts  out,  "  I  am  v>-ot  Lady  Challis.  I 
am  nothing  of  the  sort.  Dear  Lady  Arkroyd — you  must  remem- 
ber me? — you  came  to  see  me  at  home.  Do  let  me  go — let  me  go 
to  my  husband !  " 

Lady  Arkroyd  was  puzzled.  Perhaps,  after  all,  there  had  been 
a  mistake  at  the  outset,  and  there  had  been  all  along  "  some- 
thing against"  this  impossible  wife.  Nothing  suggested  itself  to 
her  as  a  practicable  course.  This  lady  had  turned  to  her  with  a 
beseeching  face,  for  which  she  had  "  Why,  of  course ! "  ready  in 
her  heart,  being  quite  a  good-natured  woman,  but  there  were  such 
odd  complications  afoot  she  could  not  utter  it.  Judith,  from  her 
security  behind  Marianne,  was  endeavouring  to  telegraph  without 
audible  speech  the  words  "Deceased  Wife's  Sister";  and,  indeed, 
after  two  or  three  repetitions,  her  mother  caught  the  clue.  But 
she  was  little,  if  any,  the  wiser;  and  it  was  then  the  prompting 
came  to  rush  for  succour  to  her  husband,  still  talking  to  the  Rector 
in  the  drawing-room. 

"  Do  you  mind  my  speaking  to  my  husband  for  a  moment  first  ?  " 
Marianne  minds  nothing,  so  long  as  it  is  on  a  road  that  leads  to 
her  object,  and  her  ladyship  goes  quickly  away. 

"May  I  leave  you  alone  for  a  few  moments,  Lady  Challis? "  says 
Judith,  going.  "Please  step  in  here  till  my  mother  returns,  and 
sit  down."  That  is,  into  the  little  room  off  the  landing.  Judith 
goes  upstairs  quickly;  and  Samuel,  always  on  the  watch,  officiates 
as  pilot. 

Lady  Arkroyd  walked  back  into  the  drawing-room.  She  looked 
despair  before  trusting  herself  to  speech,  and  the  action  of  her 
hands  laid  an  imaginary  case  for  despair  before  the  two  gentlemen, 
who  stopped  talking  to  hear  its  spoken  particulars.  Her  husband 
encouraged  revelation  by  saying  "  Well  ? "  interrogatively. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  what  is  to  be  done?  It's  the  Deceased  Wife's 
Sister!  I  wish  you  would  come." 

The  Baronet  gives  the  slightest  of  whistles.  "  Where  have  you 
got  her?"  he  asks. 

"  My  dear,  she's  in  hysterics !  " 

"Yes— but  where?" 

"In  the  front  hall.    And  Judith  is  there  with  her! " 

"  I  say,  we'd  better  go."  Thus  the  Baronet  to  the  Rector,  who 
assents  without  reserve.  Observe  that  this  colloquy  has  gone  on 
in  undertones.  Not  that  anyone  could  hear — they  might  have 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  667 

shouted,  for  that  matter — but  to  endorse  the  tension  of  the  situa- 
tion. 

Arriving  in  the  hall,  and  seeing  first  the  place  where  Judith  had 
been  standing,  her  mother  felt  a  sense  of  relief.  Her  absence  made 
the  position  easier  to  deal  with.  But — where  was  the  Deceased 
Wife's  Sister?  Samuel  explained.  He  had  shown  the  lady  into 
the  mezzanina  room,  as  directed.  Samuel  felt  proud  of  his  Italian, 
over  this. 

Marianne  had  not  been  sorry  to  be  alone  again  for  a  moment, 
after  her  first  effort  of  self -announcement.  She  looked  out  through 
the  window  over  the  rounded  slopes,  thickly  wooded  enough  to  seem 
a  stretch  of  forest;  with  the  little  groups  of  roe-deer  in  the  glades 
the  beech-woods  grudged  them,  in  their  ambition  to  cover  the 
whole  land.  She  saw  the  wide  level  lawns,  clothed  with  the  grass 
of  centuries,  dreaming  of  the  music  of  bygone  scythes,  before  the 
days  of  mowing-machines  and  their  economies  of  power  no  man 
stinted  then;  the  peacocks  walking  with  precision,  and  satisfied 
that  they  were  appreciated;  the  beds  ablaze  with  asters  and  mari- 
golds, and  dahlias,  and  standard  roses  still  blooming,  and  proud  of 
their  little  tickets  that  told  what  variety  they  were.  She  saw  all 
these,  and  out  beyond  them  the  smoke-cloud  of  the  great  manufac- 
turing centre,  with  its  confidence  of  one  day  gobbling  up  the  park 
and  its  wood  and  warren,  vert  and  venison,  and  getting  at  its  coal, 
and  using  it  up  to  make  steel  armour-plates,  that  shall  send  other 
armour-plates  to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  Unless,  indeed,  civiliza- 
tion collapses;  whereof  it  is  not  proper  form  to  say — the  sooner  the 
better  I 

All  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  Marianne,  except,  perhaps,  as 
showing  what  a  many  things  did  not  cross  her  mind  that  might 
have  done  so.  The  whole  thing  was  dim  to  her,  and  swam  about. 
Now  that  the  excitement  was  less,  she  began  to  be  afraid  she 
might  make  a  fool  of  herself  and  faint  off,  as  she  did  that  time 
with  Charlotte  Eldridge.  She  was  sorry  now  that  after  travelling 
BO  far  on  a  very  poor  breakfast  in  London,  she  had  not  had  the 
sense  to  get  a  biscuit  or  a  sandwich  at  Furnival.  When  Sir 
Murgatroyd  and  her  ladyship  came  into  the  mezzanina  room,  they 
found  her  seated  with  closed  eyes,  and  alarmingly  white.  But  she 
rallied  at  the  sound  of  their  voices.  Oh  no! — she  was  all  right. 
Now  all  she  wanted  was  to  know  about  her  husband.  Was  he  in 
danger?  Had  he  been  in  danger? 

The  Baronet,  in  a  voice  good  to  banish  hysteria  in  any  form, 
justifiable  or  otherwise,  rather  outwent  the  truth  in  his  testimony. 
Sir  Alfred  had  never  been  in  any  danger  at  all!  Who  had  told 


668  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Lady  Challis  that  story  ?  The  old  gentleman's  pooh-poohing  laugh 
was  pleasant  to  Marianne's  ears.  Only  she  didn't  feel  quite  sure 
she  wasn't  an  impostor.  She  had  come  on  the  distinct  understand- 
ing— with  whom,  hard  to  specify — that  Titus  was  dying.  Had  she 
been  imposed  upon? 

"  It  was  in  the  Sunday  paper  yesterday,"  she  said.  "  And  I  saw 
it  on  all  the  posters  at  the  stations,  coming  by  rail." 

"  Those  damnable  newspapers — you'll  excuse  me,  Lady  Challis — 
I  should  have  all  the  editors  hanged  if  I  had  my  way.  Yes,  I 
would  indeed!  Why,  there  never  was  any  danger!  These  things 
happen  every  day."  He  went  on  to  narrate  how,  when  his  mare 
Eurydice  threw  him  at  Stamford's  Croft,  he  had  been  carried  home 
unconscious,  and  remained  so  over  two  days.  "  But  your  mare  had 
to  be  shot,  my  dear,"  said  his  wife,  vaguely. 

When  Athelstan  Taylor,  who  had  hung  back  a  moment  to  ex- 
change a  few  words  with  the  nurse,  whom  he  had  met  on  the  stairs 
coming  from  Challis's  bedside,  followed  his  companions  into  the 
mezzanina  room,  he  was  surprised  and  pleased  to  find  the  Baronet 
apparently  on  the  most  comfortable  and  communicative  terms  with 
the  embarrassing  lady-visitor.  It  was  all  just  as  if  none  of  the 
events  that  made  the  visit  embarrassing  had  ever  happened.  Mari- 
anne might  have  been  the  wife  of  any  neighbour,  the  victim  of  a 
bad  accident;  who  had  come  at  a  summons  to  learn  the  worst, 
and  was  being  assured  that  no  bones  were  badly  broken,  and  the 
patient  in  perfect  trim  for  inspection  without  a  shock  to  the  feel- 
ings of  the  most  sensitive.  The  escapade  of  Challis  and  Judith 
might  have  been  a  dream,  and  the  terms  he  had  been  on  with  Mari- 
anne those  of  Philemon  and  Baucis.  Ignoring  was  evidently  the 
order  of  the  day,  and  the  Rector  made  up  his  mind  to  comply 
with  it. 

"  This  is  our  Rector,  Lady  Challis,"  said  the  old  gentleman,  in- 
troducing him.  "  The  Rev.  Athelstan  Taylor.  I  think  he  will 
tell  you  he  is  just  as  confident  as  I  am  that  Sir  Alfred  will  be 
himself  again  in  the  course  of  a  day  or  two — perhaps  in  a  few 
hours.  Eh,  Rector?" 

The  voice  of  the  big  man  with  the  fresh  face,  sun-tanned  with  a 
pedestrian  summer,  was  a  new  reassurance  to  the  frightened,  worn- 
out  woman.  It  said,  filling  the  little  room  musically,  "  Every  rea- 
son to  suppose  it,  at  any  rate!  I  hope  we  shall  all  be  as  lucky  if 
we  are  ever  in  as  bad  an  accident,  which  Heaven  forbid !  "  But  an 
inflexion  of  his  tone  contained  reference  to  other  injury  done  in 
this  accident,  and  made  Marianne  remember  the  details  in  the 
newspaper.  "  Was  there  not  a  man  killed  ? "  she  asked. 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  669 

All  looked  very  sad.  "Yes,  unhappily,"  was  the  joint  reply. 
The  Rector  began  giving  some  particulars  of  Jim's  death,  but 
stopped.  "  You  were  just  going  up  to  Sir  Alfred,"  he  said.  For 
the  general  bias  of  the  party  in  the  room,  as  he  entered  it,  had 
seemed  to  be  towards  migration.  The  visitor  had  half-risen  from 
a  sofa,  but  had  fallen  back  as  the  conversation  showed  signs  of  con- 
tinuing. 

Lady  Arkroyd  and  her  husband  exchanged  looks,  and  appeared 
to  assent  to  the  move.  Marianne  began  to  rise  again,  but  with  such 
visible  sign  of  fatigued  effort  that  the  other  three  signalled  to  one 
another,  so  to  speak,  that  this  would  never  do!  Lady  Arkroyd 
spoke,  preferring  to  indicate  that  her  husband,  with  man's 
proverbial  want  of  tact,  was  inconsiderately  overlooking  a  guest's 
comfort.  "  My  dear,  I'm  sure  Lady  Challis  has  had  nothing  to 
eat  since  she  left  London,  and  she  was  travelling  all  night.  She's 
completely  worn  out."  She  added  a  corollary,  "Men  forget  these 
things." 

The  Rev.  Athelstan  had  a  suggestion  to  make :  "  One  minute," 
said  he.  "Just  let  me  say  ...  I  spoke  to  the  nurse  just  now. 
She  said  Sir  Alfred  had  not  talked  again,  but  had  shown  he 
wanted  to  get  rid  of  the  bandage  on  his  head.  She  was  going  to 
take  it  off,  as  she  says  it  isn't  the  least  wanted.  Lady  Challis 
would  just  have  time  to  get  a  little  refreshed  while  she  does  it. 
And  then  Sir  Alfred  will  be  looking  quite  like  himself.  You  know, 
there  was  no  visible  injury  ever,  except  that  scratch  on  the  fore- 
head— just  a  bit  of  plaister !  " 

And  thus  it  came  about  that  Marianne  Challis  was  taking  a  cup 
of  black  coffee  and  a  biscuit,  but  nothing  else,  thank  you,  in  the 
house  she  had  refused  to  follow  her  husband  to  over  a  year  ago, 
at  the  very  moment  that  his  second  return  of  consciousness 
prompted  him  to  ask  again  for  Polly  Anne. 

Judith,  barely  pausing  to  see  that  Marianne  was  "shown  in" 
to  the  side-room — because  it  is  not  enough  to  know  which  door;  you 
have  to  be  properly  shown  in  by  a  servant — had  gone  quickly  to 
the  patient's  room,  meeting  the  nurse  by  the  way.  She  stopped  her. 

"Is  Sir  Alfred  Challis  conscious?" 

"I  think  a  little  more  so.  He  hasn't  spoken,  but  he  evidently 
wants  that  bandage  off  his  head.  I  thought  it  might  be  better  to 
mention  it  before  taking  it  off.  Not  that  I'm  really  afraid  of  the 
responsibility.  Only  it's  as  well  to  be  on  the  safe  side.  Is  Lady 
Arkroyd  downstairs  ? " 

"  I  think  she's  just  coming  up.     Sir  Alfred's  wife  is  here." 


670  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Oh,  indeed.  I  hope  she  won't  upset  him.  I  shall  find  Lady 
Arkroyd  downstairs.  .  .  .  Oh,  by-the-bye,  Miss  Arkroyd,  what 
did  your  mother  say  was  the  name  of  the  big  parson — Reverend 
what?" 

"  Reverend  Athelstan  Taylor." 

"  I  thought  so."  And  the  nurse,  0.  well-defined  and  explicit  per- 
son, went  downstairs  as  Judith  passed  on  along  the  lobby. 

The  figure  on  the  bed  was  moving  slightly  as  she  entered  the 
room,  feeling  how  venturesome  her  conduct  was ;  and  was  evidently 
fidgeting,  as  the  nurse  had  said,  about  the  bandage.  She  went  up 
and  stood  beside  him,  hiding  a  kind  of  desperation  under  an  im- 
movable exterior.  Should  she  speak  to  him  by  name?  If  so,  by 
what  name?  As  his  memory  was  playing  such  tricks,  might  not 
his  present  style  and  title  be  strange  to  him?  Besides,  she  had 
never  called  him  "  Sir  Alfred."  And  if  she  called  him  "  Scroop," 
as  she  had  done  almost  throughout,  and  still  he  did  not  recognize 
her,  how  then  ?  But  surely  he  was  speaking  again ! 

"  You're  very  good — but  what  am  I  being  kept  here  for  ?  I  say ! 
— I  hope  Polly  Anne's  all  right.  ..." 

"  Please  don't  pull  at  that  bandage ;  it  shall  be  taken  off  as 
soon  as  the  nurse  comes  back.  Why  shouldn't  '  Polly  Anne '  be  all 
right  ? "  She  couldn't  help  the  inverted  commas. 

"  Because  she  hasn't  come.    Did  you  send  to  the  address  I  gave  ? " 

Judith  replied  stonily,  "Your  wife  is  here.  She  will  come  di- 
rectly. .  .  .  Listen !  Do  you  not  know  me  ? "  For  she  knew 
how  short  their  time  must  be;  how  brief  and  abrupt  the  farewell 
that  had  to  be  packed  into  it,  whatever  form  it  might  take.  She 
did  not  certainly  know  whether  she  hoped  he  would  say  "  Yes." 

He  kept  her  waiting,  to  turn  his  eyes  full  on  her  and  consider 
the  point.  "  N-n-n-no !  "  said  he,  prolonging  the  first  letter.  "  I 
don't  think  I  do."  His  civil  manner  was  heart-rending  to  the 
woman  beside  him.  Recollect  that  only  three  days  before,  though 
they  would  not  have  become  de  facto  man  and  wife,  their  compact 
of  marriage  would  have  been  irrevocable!  He  kept  his  eyes  still 
on  her  with  a  puzzled  look,  adding  immediately  after,  "  Could  you 
not  tell  me  of  something  to  remind  me  ? " 

What  to  remind  him  of,  and  avoid  all  claim  of  tender  memory 
for  the  past,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  might  disallow  that  past 
altogether! — that  was  Judith's  difficulty.  She  must  keep  to  sug- 
gestions prosaic  and  bald — just  the  colourless  events  of  daily  life. 
She  tried  to  speak  with  absolute  calm  indifference,  tempered  by 
good-will. 

"  Is  it  possible  you  do  not  remember  this  room — the  room  the  Ger- 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  671 

man  Baroness  saw  the  ghost  in  ? "  She  made  a  not  too  successful 
attempt  at  a  laugh  over  this.  "  Why ! — you  slept  here  before !  " 

"Where  is 'here'?" 

"My  fathers  house,  Royd  Hall.    I  am  Judith  Arkroyd." 

Challis's  voice  and  manner  were  like  his  old  self  again  as  he 
answered,  "  I  do  feel  so  out  of  it !  "  and  laughed  a  sort  of  apology. 
"  I'm  horribly  ashamed.  I  shall  have  to  ask  Polly  Anne  to  jog 
my  memory.  Is  she  coming  ?  " 

"  Oh  yes — she's  coming."  Judith  had  hard  work  to  refrain 
from  breaking  out  "  Have  you  forgotten  Trout  Bend  and  the  con- 
vict's bridge;  the  little  Tophet  garden  and  the  letter,  and  all  my 
shawl  in  a  blaze  ?  Have  you  no  memory  of  the  play  you  wrote  for 
me  to  play  in;  of  your  fatuous  declaration  of  a  passion  a  man  of 
your  sobriety  should  have  been  ashamed  of;  above  all  of  our 
meeting  of  two  days  since,  our  reckless  race  along  the  sunlit  road, 
and  its  tragic  ending?"  But  she  knew  all  this,  that  her  tongue 
was  itching  to  remind  him  of,  was  good  for  oblivion  only;  knew  it 
by  a  thousand  tokens,  most  of  all  by  the  revelation  chance  had 
given  of  the  background  of  his  mind.  Even  the  knowledge  that 
all  fruition  of  their  crazy  scheme  was  perforce  at  an  end  was  as 
nothing  compared  to  that.  Therefore  she  felt  it  safest  to  say 
curtly  that  Marianne  was  coming,  and  to  add  that  the  nurse  would 
be  back  in  a  moment  to  remove  the  bandage. 

Challis  closed  his  eyes  again  with  a  tired  sigh.  "I  can't  trust 
myself  to  talk,"  said  he.  "  All  sorts  of  things  keep  coming  into 
my  head,  and  convincing  me  I  must  be  out  of  my  senses.  But  I'm 
clear  about  one  thing.  Someone  is  being  very  kind  to  me.  I  have 
a  general  impression  that  I  don't  deserve  it,  and  I  want  to  thank 
.  .  .  want  to  thank  ..."  He  seemed  to  give  it  up  as  a  bad  job, 
and  to  relapse  into  half -stupor. 

Judith  was  fast  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  the  sooner  she 
and  Challis  saw  the  last  of  one  another  the  better  for  both.  But 
"  to  part  at  last  without  a  kiss ! "  The  words  of  Morris's  poem 
came  into  her  mind.  Well — suppose  in  this  case  we  were  to  say, 
"  without  a  handshake  "  ?  That  would  be  quite  enough.  At  least, 
that  knight  beside  the  Haystack  in  the  Floods  would  have  known 
whom  the  kissed  lips  belonged  to.  Challis's  disordered  head  had 
constituted  him  a  stranger  to  her.  All  the  same,  to  have  the  tale 
of  their  love  end  on  a  blank  and  vanish,  and  none  write  a  word 
of  epilogue — not  so  much  as  a  bare  finis! — grated  on  her  sense 
of  the  fitness  of  things.  She  would  just  try  to  print  the  word  her- 
self, without  provoking  an  appendix.  If  he  was  insensible  again 
and  did  not  hear  her,  what  did  it  matter  ? 


672  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"The  nurse  will  come  directly,"  she  repeated.  "I  have  to  go 
now.  Good-bye ! " 

He  opened  his  eyes  again,  rousing  himself.  "  Oh — good-bye — 
good-bye !  "  said  he.  "  I  am  sorry  you  have  to  go."  He  took  her 
hand,  shaking  it  frankly  and  warmly.  She  was  afraid  the  touch 
of  her  own  hand  might  bring  back  the  past — the  useless  past — and 
almost  stinted  to  return  its  pressure. 

She  turned  in  the  doorway,  and  said,  referring  to  footsteps  ap- 
proaching the  room  without,  "  Perhaps  you  will  know  this  gentle- 
man who  is  coming  now,  and  he  will  tell  you  who  I  am."  A 
bitterness  in  her  heart  made  the  last  words  come,  and  then  she  said 
to  the  nurse  and  Athelstan  Taylor,  who  was  with  her,  "  He's  been 
talking  again,  quite  like  himself,  only  he  doesn't  know  me  from 
Adam.  But  I  fancy  he'll  soon  be  all  right." 

"  That's  good  hearing,"  said  the  Rector  cheerfully.  "  You'll  find 
the  Duchess  downstairs.  She's  asking  for  you,  to  take  you  to 
Thanes." 

"  Oh,  is  she  ?  I  think  I  shall  put  my  things  on  at  once,  and  go 
with  her."  She  went  to  her  room  and  rang  for  her  maid,  whom  she 
sent  with  a  message  to  the  Duchess.  She  would  be  ready  in  five 
minutes,  she  said,  and  meant  to  stop  the  night. 

When  the  little  handmaiden  had  finished  her  ministrations,  and 
her  mistress  and  the  Duchess  had  driven  away,  she  was  found  in 
tears  by  a  fellow-servant,  and  explained  them  by  saying  Miss  Judith 
was  angry  with  her.  Because  she  had  never  once  called  her  Cin- 
tilla,  but  only  Clemency,  which  was  merely  her  proper  name. 

"  My  dear  sir,"  said  Challis  to  the  Rector,  standing  by  his  bed, 
"you  say,  'Don't  I  know  you?'  And  you  say  it  so  confidently 
that  it  convinces  me  I  ought  to  know  you.  But  I  can't  say  I  do. 
Honour  bright ! " 

"Never  mind!  Don't  try  to  think  about  it.  You'll  come  to 
rights  presently.  Let  this  good  lady  get  that  thing  off  your  head. 
The  best  thing  you  can  do  is  to  lie  still." 

So  Challis  lay  still  and  listened  to  the  conversation.  And  this 
is  what  he  heard : 

"I  hadn't  flattered  myself  you  would  remember  your  humble 
servant,  Mr.  Taylor,  but  I  felt  pretty  sure  you  wouldn't  have  for- 
gotten the  incident." 

"  I  wasn't  likely  to  do  that.  Faugh ! — I've  got  the  flavour  of  the 
place  upon  me  still.  That  antiseptic  sack  and  rubber  gloves! — all 
the  horror  of  it !  But  apart  from  that,  the  story  the  creature  told 
was  such  a  queer  one." 

"  Seal  of  confession,  I  suppose  ?  " 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  673 

"  Hardly  that !  But  not,  perhaps,  to  be  repeated  except  to  serve 
some  special  end.  I  understood  he  left  it  to  my  discretion." 

"  I  had  no  motive  but  curiosity.    Don't  tell  me !  " 

"  How  came  you  to  remember  my  name  ? " 

"  I  didn't.  Miss  Arkroyd  told  it  me.  I  remembered  your  look 
when  I  showed  you  into  the  ward.  But  I  ought  to  have  remem- 
bered your  name,  because  I  posted  Dr.  Crumpton's  letter  to 
you  .  .  ." 

"  I  remember.  It  was  to  ask  which  of  his  aliases  this  man  had 
given  me.  They  didn't  know  what  name  to  bury  him  under." 

"  Oh,  I  remember  .  .  .  Thomas  Essendean.  No,  it  wasn't  that. 
That  was  one  they  rejected.  What  was  it  he  told  you  ? " 

"  Kay  Thorne,  or  perhaps  Key — Key  Thorne.  .  .  .  What  ? " 
For  Challis,  by  this  time  bandageless  and  ready  to  receive  visitors, 
but  evidently  glad  to  keep  his  head  down  on  the  pillow,  had  ut- 
tered an  exclamation,  without  opening  his  eyes.  "  What's  '  hullo/ 
Challis  ? "  said  the  Rector.  For  a  moment,  he  felt  afraid  that  the 
patient's  mind  was  wandering.  But  only  for  a  moment.  For 
when  Challis  spoke  again,  it  was  quite  quietly  and  collectedly. 

"  Name  of  my  first  wife's  first  ...  no ! — I  don't  mean  that. 
Name  of  a  friend  of  mine  eight — ten — years  ago.  Not  Kaith; 
Keith  Home.  He  wasn't  a  shining  light.  He  came  to  awful 
grief  in  the  end.  Penal  servitude,  I  believe.  ..." 

"You  mustn't  tire  yourself  with  talking,"  said  the  nurse. 
"We  shall  have  her  ladyship  up  directly.  You  know  she's  com- 
ing?" 

"  Oh  no ! — might  my  wife  come  ?  Her  ladyship  can  come  after- 
wards." 

The  Rector  understood.  He  glanced  at  the  nurse  indicatively. 
"  Mrs.  Challis  had  better  come  first,"  he  said.  Then  he  said  good- 
bye to  Challis,  and  went  his  way.  In  the  passage  was  Lady  Ark- 
royd, followed  by  Marianne.  "You'll  find  him  immensely  im- 
proved," said  he.  "  I  can't  say  he  remembered  me,  but  he  will 
next  time." 

Then,  as  he  shook  hands  with  the  scared  and  bewildered  lady  in 
black,  he  thought  to  himself,  "Now,  what  a  queer  story  I  could 
tell  you,  if  I  didn't  feel  that  the  right  course  is  to  keep  a  lock  on 
my  tongue ! " 

For  it  had  just  come  home  to  him  that  Marianne  was  not 
Challis's  Deceased  Wife's  Sister  at  all,  because  "poor  Kate"  had 
never  been  his  Deceased  Wife.  She  was  the  late  Mr.  Keith 
Home's !  And  as  regarded  the  "  living  in  sin  business,"  evidently 
she  was  the  real  Simon  Pure,  and  Marianne  a  mere  pretender! 


CHAPTEK  LEEI 

A  POSTSCRIPT.  MR.  AND  MRS.  ATHELSTAN  TAYLOR.  MR.  AND  MRS. 
BROWNRIGG.  ODDS  AND  ENDS  OF  SEQUELS.  THE  DREAM  VANISHES, 
READABLE  BITS  AND  ALL  ! 

"  IT'S  a  magnificent  match,  and  she'll  make  a  perfect  Duchess," 
said  the  Reverend  Athelstan  Taylor  a  twelvemonth  later — only  six 
months  ago  at  this  present  time  of  writing.  "  And  Thyringia  will 
make  a  perfect  dowager.  But  the  old  Duke  may  live  to  see  a 
grandchild  or  two.  Doesn't  do  to  count  one's  coronets  before 
they're  hatched — eh,  Addie  ?  " 

"  I  do  wish,  Yorick  dearest,  you  would  be  a  little  less  secretive, 
and  tell  me  what  she  really  said  that  time." 

"I  have  told  you,  sweetheart,  all  there  was  to  tell.  I  haven't 
been  keeping  anything  back." 

"  Never  mind !     Tell  it  again." 

"  Well — it  was  just  like  this."  He  dropped  his  voice  to  sadness, 
as  in  deference  to  something  sad  outside  the  matter  of  his  speech. 
"  I  had  just  come  from  reading  the  service  over  poor  Jim 
and  .  .  ." 

"Darling  little  Lizarann!  Oh,  Yorick,  I  don't  believe  I  shall 
ever  love  my  own  child  as  ..."  The  speaker  could  not  utter 
another  word;  and,  indeed,  her  tears  were  not  the  only  ones  that 
had  to  be  got  clear  of  before  the  Rector  could  proceed.  In  time 
he  got  on  with  his  twice-told  tale;  but  their  subjugation  overlapped 
his  words  that  followed: 

"Well — it  was  then!  I  dare  say  the  young  woman  didn't  mean 
to  be  supercilious  and  provoking,  but  she  was.  Why  couldn't  she 
leave  the  funeral  alone?  She  hadn't  come  to  it,  and  no  one  had 
asked  her  to  do  so.  ... " 

"I  don't  believe  there  were  half-a-dozen  people  in  the  vil- 
lage that  didn't." 

"  Very  likely  not.  But  I  wasn't  going  to  take  her  to  task  for  it. 
She  began.  Talked  of  it  as  if  it  had  been  a  public  meeting!  Had 
heard  there  was  quite  a  large  gathering  at  Blind  Jim's  funeral. 
'You  were  not  there,'  said  I,  simply  as  a  matter  of  fact.  But  I 
suppose  she  felt  there  was  a  cap  that  fitted,  for  she  said : '  I  thought 

674 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  675 

you  would  think  the  family  quite  sufficiently  represented  by  my 
father  and  mother.'  I  answered — and  I  dare  say  my  manner  was 
rather  irritable — '  I  wasn't  counting  heads,  Judith.'  She  said, 
with  a  disagreeable  shrewdness :  '  But  you  noticed  my  absence  ? ' 
'  If  you  ask  me,'  said  I,  '  I  did  notice  it ;  and  of  all  your  family,  I 
think,  under  the  circumstances,  your  presence  was  the  one  most 
called  for.'  She  replied,  with  that  exasperating  placidity  she  is 
such  a  mistress  of :  '  Possibly  some  persons  acquainted  with  the 
whole  story  might  have  thought  a  parade  of  emotion  uncalled  for 
on  my  part.'  I  said,  rather  angrily :  '  No  one  expects  a  parade  of 
emotion  from  you,  but  only  the  common  debt  all  are  ready  to  pay 
to  the  memory  of  a  fellow-creature  tragically  killed — especially 
those  who  have  had  any  share,  however  indirect,  in  his  death !  She 
replied :  '  I  don't  think  we  need  make  any  pretences.  You  know 
as  well  as  I  do  what  share  this  man  had  in  frustrating  an  object 
I  had  at  heart;  and  at  least  you  cannot  expect  me  to  be  grateful 
to  him?'" 

"  You  were  alone,  then  ? " 

"  Yes — her  mother  had  gone  on  in  front.  My  answer  to  her  was 
substantially  that,  if  she  knew  what  I  knew,  she  would  think  poor 
Jim  a  benefactor,  instead  of  bearing  a  grudge  against  him.  *  What 
do  you  mean?'  said  she.  'Please  don't  be  enigmatical.'  I  then 
told  her  bluntly  what  her  position  would  have  been  had  her  pro- 
,  posed  marriage  with  Challis  been  put  into  practice — been  acted  on. 
I  told  her  of  the  legalism  under  which  the  validity  of  Challis's 
marriage  with  Marianne  would  stand  or  fall,  according  as  his 
previous  marriage  was  void  or  otherwise;  and  that  it  was  void,  as 
his  first  wife's  husband  was  living  when  he  married  her.  I  must 
say  I  admired  her  self-possession  when  she  heard  what  a  precipice 
she  had  been  on  the  edge  of.  ..." 

"What  did  she  say?" 

"She  paused  in  her  walk  with  a  sort  of  '  what-next-I- wonder?' 
look  on  her  face,  and  a  slight  'oh — really!'  movement  of  the  head. 
Then  she  walked  on  again,  as  before;  merely  saying,  as  coolly  as 
if  she  were  talking  of  a  new  dress — more  coolly — '  The  marriage 
laws  are  too  funny  for  words.'  " 

"What  did  you  say?" 

"I  said  they  were;  feeling  free  to  do  so  with  dear  Gus  at 
Tunis.  But  I  saw  that  she  was  perfectly  well  aware  what  a  nar- 
row escape  she  had  had.  However,  she'll  forget  all  about  it  when 
she's  a  Duchess.  It's  a  pity  he's  so  much  younger  than  she  is." 

"  Will  the  Challises  ever  know  Marianne  was  his  wife  all  along  ? " 

"I  hope  not.     It  would  break  Marianne's  heart.    Her  belief  in 


676  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

her  sister  would  be  shaken.  Now  they're  so  happy  together  again 
it  would  be  a  grievous  pity  she  should  know  anything  about  it. 
She's  quite  content  with  the  retrospective  working  of  the  new 
Statute.  Enough  is  as  good  as  a  feast.  ..." 

This  was  not  the  end  of  the  conversation.  But  the  story  sees 
that  it  was  to  blame  for  not  telling  some  more  of  the  antecedent 
circumstances  that  had  made  it  possible,  and  now  hastens  to  make 
good  the  deficit.  The  Hector  can  wait. 

Bishop  Barham  had  been  as  good  as  his  word.  He  allowed  a 
reasonable  time  to  elapse  after  the  passing  of  the  Act  legalizing 
marriage  with  a  Deceased  Wife's  Sister,  and  then  towards  Christ- 
mas addressed  a  letter  of  paternal  remonstrance  to  the  Rector  of 
Royd,  "  pointing  out "  some  contingent  effects  of  the  Act  which  it 
was  his  duty,  as  that  reverend  gentleman's  Diocesan,  to  lay  stress 
upon  in  the  interests  of  public  decorum,  as  the  slightest  laxity  in 
such  a  matter  might  have  an  injurious  influence  on  the  morality  of 
clergy  and  laity  alike.  He  was  not  suggesting  for  one  moment 
that  any  infraction  of  moral  law  whatever  was  contemplated,  or 
was  even  conceivable,  in  the  present  case.  But  a  well-defined  rule 
of  life  had  to  be  observed  by  persons  on  whose  part  the  slightest 
deviation  from  the  strict  observance  of  an  enjoined  conformity 
may  act  injuriously  on  the  community.  Here  the  prelude  ended, 
and  the  Bishop  came  to  the  scratch.  He  could  not  shut  his  eyes 
to  the  fact  that  the  Rev.  Athelstan's  household  consisted  only — 
children  apart — of  himself  and  a  lady,  the  sister  of  his  deceased 
wife.  Since  the  recent  lamentable  decision  of  the  Legislature  to 
remove  all  legal  restriction  on  marriages  of  persons  so  related,  thus 
placing  the  Canon  Law  of  the  Church  at  variance  with  the  Law  of 
the  Land,  there  would  be  no  doubt  that  Mr.  Taylor's  domestic  ar- 
rangements laid  him  open  to  censure,  and  might  easily  give  rise  to 
a  serious  public  scandal.  There  was  no  doubt  they  transgressed 
the  general  rule  which  decides  that  persons  marriageable  but  not 
married  shall  not  be  domiciled  alone  together,  however  circum- 
spect their  conduct  may  be.  The  Bishop  contrived  to  hint  that  it 
was  impossible  to  say  where  youth  and  susceptibility  ended,  and  a 
grouty  and  untempting  elderliness  began,  and  that  on  this  account 
especially  his  remarks  applied  in  this  case.  Aunt  Bessy  was 
palpably  neither  Lalage  nor  Doris,  but  the  principle  held  good  all 
the  same.  He  therefore,  et  cetera. 

The  Rev.  Athelstan  bit  his  lip  and  flushed  angrily  as  he  read 
the  gratuitous  insult  to  Aunt  Bessy,  who,  although  prim  and  in- 
tensely conservative,  was  not  yet  thirty-eight — for  the  two  things 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  67? 

are  compatible — and  immediately  wrote  as  follows  in  answer  to  the 
Bishop : 

"  MY  LORD, 

"I  can  only  interpret  your  letter  as  enjoining  upon  me  one  of 
two  courses.  Either  my  sister-in-law  must  reside  elsewhere  or 
become  my  wife.  But  I  understand  that  the  Canon  Law  of  the 
Church  still  discountenances  marriage  with  a  Deceased  Wife's 
Sister;  and,  further,  that  by  a  special  clause  of  the  recent  Act 
nothing  therein  relieves  a  clergyman  from  any  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sure to  which  he  would  have  been  liable  previously  for  contracting 
such  a  marriage. 

"  If  your  Lordship  will  guarantee  me  against  ecclesiastical  cen- 
sure for  so  doing,  I  will  (having  first  ascertained  Miss  Caldecott's 
views  on  the  subject)  make  arrangements  for  our  marriage  at  an 
early  date,  with  a  view  to  removing  the  scandal  you  complain  of. 

"  If  your  Lordship  can  be  prevailed  on  to  officiate  at  the  wed- 
ding, I  shall  regard  your  doing  so  as  the  best  security  I  can  have 
against  ecclesiastical  censure  hereafter." 

To  which  the  Bishop's  reply  was: 

"  DEAR  MR.  TAYLOR, 

"  It  is  my  Episcopal  duty  to  point  out  to  you  that  such  a  mar- 
riage as  you  indicate,  though  legal,  would  be  now,  as  always,  con- 
trary to  the  Canon  Law  of  the  Church,  and  in  my  opinion  repug- 
nant to  every  feeling  of  Christian  morality.  I  refrain  from  using 
the  adjective  I  am  tempted  to  apply  to  it. 

"  But  as  I  hold  it  to  be  consistent  with  my  conscience  as  a 
Churchman  to  defer  to  public  opinion  when  it  coincides  with  my 
own,  I  am  inclined  to  accept  as  well-grounded  the  view  that  house- 
holds such  as  your  present  one  may  become  the  subjects  of  un- 
favourable comment,  as  a  consequence  (although  the  least  perni- 
cious one)  of  the  recent  Act  of  Parliament.  I  trust  I  have  ex- 
pressed clearly  what  I  conceive  to  be  your  obvious  duty  alike  as  a 
Christian  pastor  and  a  member  of  Society. 

"  With  regard  to  the  concluding  paragraph  of  your  letter,  I  make 
no  reply,  except  that  in  my  opinion  it  calls  for  an  apology. 

"I  am,  etc., 

"  Faithfully  yours, 

"IGNATIUS  Nox." 

The  Rev.  Athelstan  showed  both  these  letters  of  the  Bishop  to 
Adeline  Fossett,  his  adviser  in  difficulties  from  boyhood,  when  that 


678  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

lady  came  to  pay  a  visit  to  the  Rectory  a  week  before  Christmas, 
when  she  could  not  come,  because  of  leaving  her  mother  alone. 
Families  cohere  at  Christmas,  as  long  as  they  are  plural,  and  can. 
The  cohesion  of  a  unit  is  involuntary  and  continuous. 

Now,  Miss  Fossett's  opinions  had  been  much  modified  when  the 
debate  in  the  Peers  enlightened  her  about  the  views  of  the  Roman 
Church,  which — she  inferred — is  quite  willing  to  marry  all  the 
sisters  of  the  largest  families  successively  to  any  &ona  fide  widower. 
Possibly  the  Sacrament  of  Marriage  might  be  refused  to  a  man 
who  had  murdered  his  last  wife  in  connection  with  his  suit  for  her 
sister's  hand.  But  Amor  omnia  vincit.  Could  the  solemn  rite  be 
refused  to  him  if  he  brought  the  ring  in  his  pocket  to  the  scaffold, 
and  the  Registrar  was  in  attendance? 

However,  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  Adeline  Fossett.  She,  to 
be  brief,  laughed  at  the  Bishop's  letters.  The  story  has  told  how 
delighted  she  would  have  been  to  unite  in  marriage  her  two  friends, 
whom  she  had  long  ago  destined  for  one  another,  only  the  well-laid 
scheme  ganged  agee.  And  here  she  had  the  Pope  and  the  Duke 
of  Norfolk  to  back  her,  if  consanguinity  cropped  up  again ! 
Clearly  Yorick's  destiny  was  to  marry  Aunt  Bessy,  and  be  happy. 
Unless  he  hated  her,  of  course ! 

The  Rector  laughed  his  big  laugh.  "  Oh  no,  I  don't  hate  Bess !  " 
said  he.  "I'm  very  fond  of  Bess — I  am."  And  then  he  laughed 
again,  and  seemed  immensely  amused. 

"Look  here,  Yorick!  Don't  be  a  goose.  She's  in  the  next 
room.  Just  you  go  in  and  tell  her  your  idea,  and  see  what  she 
thinks.  Do,  dear  boy!  Only  you  mustn't  be  as  cold  as  Charity, 
you  know ! " 

"All  right.    I'll  do  justice  to  the  position." 

"  You  will  ? — promise !  .  .  .  Very  good.  Now,  Yorick — 
Yorick — dear  old  Yorick!  See  what  I'll  do!  I'll  give  you  my 
blessing  and  God-speed ! "  And  then  she  took  him  by  both  hands 
and  kissed  his  face.  He  would  have  liked  to  return  the  kiss;  but, 
then,  you  see,  it  would  have  impaired  the  elder-sister  tone. 

Was  Adeline  Fossett  aware  how  she  had  put  the  last  nail 
in  the  coffin  of  that  little  scheme,  when  she  presumed  on  their 
mock-fraternity  in  that  dangerous  way?  Why — she  wasn't 
even  his  Deceased  Wife's  half-Sister,  Marianne's  relation  to 
Challis ! 

She  sat  and  listened  for  what  she  expected  to  go  on  in  the  next 
room.  But  it  came  not.  As  she  waited  there — a  fair  distance 
from  the  door,  not  to  be  eavesdropping — she  looked  more  than  ever 
as  if  she  might  have  married.  Her  colour  went  and  came  as  Hope 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  679 

rose  and  fell ;  and  every  little  chance  that  Yorick's  voice  was  going 
to  be  less  good-humoured  and  genial,  and  come  from  his  heart  with 
a  proper  sound  of  love  in  it,  made  her  own  heart  pause  on  a  beat. 
But,  alas! — the  voices  only  went  on  as  before.  Oh  dear! — would 
nothing  come  of  it,  after  all? 

It  went  on  for  a  long  time,  that  talk.  And  till  half-way  through 
that  time  there  was  hope  on  the  face  of  the  listener,  following  its 
sounds  without  distinguishing  a  syllable.  Then  the  irritating 
bonhomie,  the  equable  fluency  of  the  masculine  tones,  the  vexa- 
tious household  dryness  of  the  feminine  ones,  became  maddening  to 
ears  that  expected  at  least  cordial  warmth.  Oh,  if  she  could  only 
enter  unseen,  and  prompt  the  apathy  of  the  speaker!  She  bit  her 
lip  with  vexation,  and  found  it  difficult  to  resist  the  temptation  to 
listen  outright.  Surely  Yorick  must  have  reached  the  crucial 
point  by  now!  Or  were  they,  after  all,  talking  of  something  else 
all  the  while?  .  .  . 

There,  that  was  emphasis,  anyhow!  And  any  evidence  that 
the  topic  had  been  fairly  broached  was  welcome.  Only,  the  warmth 
was  on  the  wrong  side;  it  was  Aunt  Bessy's  voice  for  one  thing; 
and,  for  another,  was  a  good  deal  more  like  indignation  than  af- 
fection. Now,  very  likely  you  know  that,  when  something  you  can- 
not hear  is  repeated  several  times,  it  becomes  audible  however  hon- 
ourably determined  you  may  be  not  to  listen  to  it.  At  about  the 
third  repetition  Miss  Fossett,  though  she  sincerely  believed  she 
hadn't  been  listening,  had  become  aware  that  the  phrase  was,  "  Why 
can't  you  make  her  marry  you  herself  ? "  and,  moreover,  that  her 
own  self  was  the  one  referred  to.  Her  heart  went  with  a  bound, 
and  her  breath  got  caught  in  a  gasp;  and  then,  somehow  with- 
out sense  or  reason,  her  hair  had  got  loose  and  come  down,  and 
she  was  getting  it  arranged  at  the  mirror  over  the  chimney-piece, 
with  the  bevelled  edges  and  the  ebony  frame,  and  trying  to  make 
out  she  had  never  begun  to  cry,  when  Yorick  came  back  into  the 
room,  saying:  "What  do  you  think  Bess  says,  Addie?  She  says 
if  I  were  to  ask  you,  you  would  marry  me  yourself."  She  didn't 
know  precisely  what  reply  she  made.  But  she  certainly  had  no 
grounds  for  complaining  of  the  coldness  of  the  Rector's  reception 
of  it. 

When,  five  minutes  later,  Miss  Caldecott  followed  her  brother-in- 
law  into  the  room,  the  lady  and  gentleman  were  still  before  the 
looking-glass,  apparently  very  much  pleased.  And  the  latter, 
without  taking  his  arm  from  the  waist  of  the  former,  said :  "  I  say, 
Bess,  what  a  ghastly  couple  of  fools  we  have  been !  "  and  broke  into 
one  of  his  big  laughs. 


680  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Speak  for  yourself,  Athel ! "  said  Aunt  Bessy,  rather  stiffly. 

"  I  didn't  mean  you.    I  meant  Addie." 

"Speak  for  yourself,  Yorickl"  said  Addie;  and  made  believe 
to  detach  herself,  but  did  not  insist.  Then  Aunt  Bessy  kissed 
her  twice  on  each  side,  and  the  two  children,  coming  into  the 
room  from  the  garden,  off  an  excursion,  said,  "  What's  this  f aw  ?  " 
and  seemed  to  think  some  new  movement  was  afoot,  which  would 
probably  be  beneficial  in  the  main  ultimately.  They  accepted 
partial  explanation,  however,  fuller  particulars  being  promised  in 
due  course,  and  went  away  to  have  their  things  off. 

A  day  or  two  later  Aunt  Bessy,  being  alone  with  the  bride-elect, 
cleared  her  throat  in  an  ominous  way,  as  one  does  when  one  has 
something  of  importance  to  communicate.  Miss  Fossett,  who  in 
the  previous  twenty-four  hours  had  twice  said  to  the  Rector, 
"  What  is  the  matter  with  Bess  ?  I'm  sure  there's  something  brew- 
ing," became  aware  that  she  was  going  to  be  enlightened  about  this 
mystery,  and  waited,  open-eyed.  Revelation  followed,  conscious  of 
importance,  but  sometimes  at  a  loss  for  phraseology. 

"  I  think,  my  dear  Adeline,  I  may  speak  freely  to  you  on  a  sub- 
ject which  nearly  concerns  my  own  happiness."  Adeline  pricked 
up  her  ears,  and  the  speaker,  feeling  she  had  made  a  good  begin- 
ning, cleared  her  throat  again  less  poignantly,  and  continued: 
"  When  dear  Athel  talked  that  silly  nonsense  to  me  the  other  day 
.  .  .  you  know  what  I  am  referring  to,  dear  Addie?"  Yes — 
Addie  knew.  "  Well  ...  I  did  not  then  know  with  any  certainty 
the  sentiments  entertained  towards  myself  by  .  .  ." 

u  By  ?  .    .   . "  said  Addie,  and  waited. 

"  By  a  gentleman  who  is  very  slightly  known  to  you — so  slightly 
that,  though  no  doubt  you  know  him  by  name,  you  will 
hardly  ..." 

Addie,  suddenly  apprehensive,  thought  in  a  hurry,  clapping  her 
hands  to  help  recollection.  The  moment  she  lighted  on  the  name 
that  was  eluding  her,  she  pointed  straight,  as  at  a  convicted 
delinquent.  "Mr.  Brownrigg,"  said  she  firmly. 

Miss  Caldecott  excused  what  no  accusation  had  been  brought 
against.  "  I  know,"  said  she,  "  that  the  name  is  not  a  showy  one ; 
but  the  family  is  old,  and  his  scientific  attainments  indisputable. 
He  has  recently  been  appointed  to  the  Chair  of  Logic  and  Mental 
Philosophy  in  .  .  ." 

"  But,  my  dear  Bess,  his  opinions  I    And  why  didn't  you  tell  us  ? " 

"His  opinions,  my  dear,  are  generally  misunderstood.  And  as 
to  why  I  did  not  tell  you,  how  could  I,  when  I  did  not  know  my- 
self? I  only  wish  that  when  dear  Athel  ..." 


IT  NEVEK  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  681 

"Took  my  advice  and  made  a  goose  of  himself — I  know.  I 
plead  guilty.  Yes  ..." 

"  Well — I  wish  I  had  then  been  able  to  speak  with  ...  a  ... 
certainty  of  this  ...  a  ...  possible  arrangement.  But  it 
was  only  when  I  referred  to  the  change  in  Athel's  plans  that  Mr. 
Brownrigg  ..." 

"  But  you  haven't  seen  him  since  I  ...  since  our  engage- 
ment .  .  .  Oh,  Bess ! — you  wrote  off  to  him  at  once." 

"  I  did  nothing  of  the  sort."  Dignity  was  manifest.  "  I  was 
writing  to  Mr.  Brownrigg  on  quite  another  subject,  and  referred 
to  it  incidentally.  It  was  only  last  night  that  I  got  his  answer 
in  reply,  and  I  think  it  need  be  no  secret  that  it  contained  an  offer 
of  marriage,  very  beautifully  and  clearly  expressed.  He  pointed 
out  that,  however  painful  it  might  be  to  me  to  relinquish  the 
charge  of  my  sister's  children,  even  to  a  step-mother  who  is  al- 
ready almost  as  much  a  mother  to  them  as  myself  ..." 

"  Oh,  Bess  dear,  I  will  molly-cosset  over  Phoebe  and  Joan.  I 
will,  indeed !  " 

"You'll  spoil  them,  Addie.  But  that's  neither  here  nor  there. 
Mr.  Brownrigg  went  on  to  point  out  that  I  could  now  consult  my 
own  welfare  and  his,  without  any  detriment  to  the  interests  of  the 
two  children."  At  this  point  Miss  Caldecott  became  quite  natural, 
saying :  "  He  would  never  have  asked  me,  Addie,  as  long  as  he 
thought  I  was  wanted  here."  In  which  few  words  Miss  Fossett  saw 
more  of  the  little  drama  that  had  been  going  on  in  the  last  six 
months  than  in  all  the  rest  put  together. 

"  But  his  opinions,  my  dear,  his  opinions !  "  said  she.  "  How- 
ever will  you  get  on  with  his  opinions?  I  thought  he  was  an 
Atheist,  and  all  sorts  of  things." 

Miss  Caldecott  replied  that  whoever  had  said  such  at  thing  of 
Mr.  Brownrigg  had  libelled  him  grossly.  The  exact  contrary  was 
the  case.  No  one  ever  approached  sacred  subjects  in  a  more  rev- 
erential spirit  than  Mr.  Brownrigg.  She  was  not  qualified  to  re- 
peat his  elucidations  of  the  great  German  Philosopher  he  had  such 
an  admiration  for.  But  he  Iiad  been  able  to  point  out  even  to  her 
humble  understanding  that  the  question  whether  there  was  or  was 
not  a  supreme  Being  turned  entirely  on  the  meaning  of  the  verb  to 
Be,  which  was  at  best  a  finite  Human  expression.  Miss  Caldecott 
scarcely  did  justice  to  all  her  suitor's  exponency  of  the  Identity  of 
the  Highest  Atheism  with  the  Highest  Theism. 

She  had,  however,  been  specially  impressed  with  a  chapter  from 
Graubosch's  "  Divagationes  Indagatoris,"  of  which  he  had  read  her 
his  translation.  In  this  the  following  passage  occurs :  "  The 


682  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

Thinker  of  the  Future  will  do  well  to  turn  his  attention  to  the  con- 
struction of  a  language  expressly  adapted  to  deal  with  the  Un- 
known and  Infinite.  At  present  our  vocabulary  is  based  entirely, 
so  far  as  we  understand  it,  on  things  within  our  comprehension, 
and  even  its  meanings  are  not  invariably  a  subject  of  unanimity. 
Until  we  possess  such  a  language  our  efforts  to  grapple  with  the 
Essentially  Incomprehensible  must  be  futile,  of  necessity.  It 
would  be  a  step  in  the  right  direction  if  all  schools  of  Thought 
could  agree  as  to  the  nature  of  the  Agency  to  which  the  Known 
and  the  Unknown,  the  Finite  and  the  Infinite,  are  alike  to  be  im- 
puted. The  selection  of  a  name  for  this  Agency  has  been  the  sub- 
ject of  a  good  deal  of  crude  and  unphilosophical  discussion  in  ages 
less  enlightened  than  the  one  the  New  School  of  Thought  pro- 
poses to  inaugurate.  So  much  so  that  many  nomenclatures  have 
used  more  than  one  name  for  the  same  Person  or  Entity;  one  of 
the  number  being  occasionally  kept  secret,  as  being  Unpronounce- 
able; although  in  this  case  difficulties  must  have  arisen  about  di- 
vulging it.  Pending  agreement  among  the  various  branches  and 
affiliated  Societies  of  the  New  School  as  to  the  Nature  and  Extent 
of  the  Unknown;  the  original  promoter  of  Causation;  and  the 
terms  on  which  his  Instigator,  if  any,  had  himself  qualified  for  Ex- 
istence, we  should  not  discountenance,  but  rather  sanction,  the  use 
of  the  vulgar  terminology,  such  as  Gott,  God,  Dieu,  Deus,  Zeus, 
and  so  on.  No  doubt  within  the  near  future  a  Lexicon  or  Dic- 
tionary of  words  and  phrases  applicable  to  things  beyond  our  cog- 
nizance will  be  put  in  hand,  and  until  the  publication  of  this 
Thesaurus  Novus  we  may  safely  discourage  heated  argument  on 
subjects  with  which  our  present  resources  in  language  do  not 
qualify  us  to  deal.  Possibly  an  absolute  silence,  and  a  conscious- 
ness of  our  own  insignificance,  may  be  the  safest  attitude  to  as- 
sume towards  the  Infinite,  pending  the  issue  of  the  volume.  And 
during  this  interim,  it  would  appear  to  be  the  safest  policy  to  fall 
in  with  the  apparent  scheme  of  the  Visible  Creation;  and  to  com- 
ply, so  far  as  our  information  goes,  with  the  Will  of  its  Creator." 

Had  Miss  Caldecott  been  able  to  repeat  all  that  Mr.  Brownrigg 
had  pointed  out  to  her,  Miss  Fossett  would  no  doubt  have  perceived 
that  no  danger  to  religion  or  morality  could  possibly  accrue  from 
reasonings  that  had  such  a  happy  faculty  of  landing  in  the  status 
quo. 

Towards  the  conservation  of  which  Miss  Caldecott,  as  she  ex- 
plained to  her  friend,  had  been  able  to  contribute.  "I  am  sure, 
'dear  Addie,"  she  said,  "  that  I  may  rely  on  your  rejoicing  with 
me  that  I  have  prevailed  upon  Mr.  Brownrigg  to  abstain,  in  the 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  683 

publication  of  this  translation,  from  the  intention  he  had  of  spell- 
ing Him  and  He  with  a  little  H.  I  mean,  when  reverence  for 
established  usage  prohibits  what  he  speaks  of  as  '  lower-case 
type.'  He  at  once  assented  to  my  wishes,  saying  that  in  view  of 
the  issues  involved,  to  persist  in  his  intention  would  be  to  pursue  a 
— what  did  he  call  it  ? — '  a  policy  of  pin-pricks.'  That  was  it." 

In  the  sequel  Mrs.  Brownrigg  eventuated,  in  the  place  of  Miss 
Caldecott.  And  she  and  her  husband  are  a  happy  couple  at  this 
date  of  writing.  They  have  discovered  a  modus  vivendi,  and  are 
highly  satisfied  with  it. 

That  is  how  it  was  that  the  conversation  with  which  this  chap- 
ter opened  became  possible.  Let  it  proceed: 

"  Do  you  think  Sir  Alfred's  last  book  is  so  much  worse  than  his 
others,  Yorick  f " 

"I  can't  say  it  struck  me  so.  If  it  is,  it's  not  because  of  his 
knock  on  the  head;  because  it  was  all  written  three  years  ago,  and 
has  been  lying  in  a  drawer.  But  the  reviewers — he  was  talking 
about  it  himself  yesterday  evening — always  take  for  granted  that 
every  book  is  the  work  of  the  last  twelvemonth.  He  read  me  some 
of  what  he  has  just  written,  and  it  seemed  all  right  to  me.  That 
Bob  of  his  is  a  delightful  boy,  only  too  sweeping  in  his  views. 
It  is  not  true  that  all  reviewers  are  asses,  or  that  they  never  read 
the  books  they  criticise.  Bob  came  with  him  to  see  me  off." 

"  How  do  they  like  Sussex  Terrace  ? " 

"Very  much.  At  least,  they  will  when  they  are  settled.  It's 
a  splendid  big  house.  I  think  he  was  glad  to  leave  the  Hermitage, 
for  more  reasons  than  one.  ..." 

"  I  know  one.     What  were  the  others  ? " 

"  Which  is  the  one  you  know  ? " 

''Mrs.  Eldridge." 

"  Yes — she  was  one.  But  I  suppose  the  chief  one  was  the  one. 
Anything  to  get  rid  of  what  brought  the  story  back.  He  has  never 
spoken  of  it  again  to  me." 

"  Not  since  that  one  time  ? " 

"Yes — long  ago  now!  When  was  it? — over  a  twelvemonth. 
He  described  how  it  all  came  back  to  him."  The  Rector  extem- 
porized a  sympathetic  shudder,  and  made  an  excruciated  noise; 
both  very  expressive.  "You  see,  in  his  oblivion,  he  was  simply 
hungering  for  the  coming  of  this  wife  he  had  quarrelled  with,  and 
remembering  her  as  in  her  early  days  ..." 

"  Oh,  it  was  hideous !  Just  fancy  the  memory  of  Judith  Ark- 
royd  coming  back  to  him  1 " 


€84  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

"  Yes — as  he  told  me  himself — with  the  arms  of  his  wife  round 
him  whom  he  had  been  longing  for !  He  told  me  all  about  it — how 
he  had  said  to  her:  'What  for,  Polly  Anne?  What  am  I  to  for- 
give you  for?'  Because,  don't  you  see,  sweetheart?  ..." 

"  Oh  yes— I  see." 

"...  Don't  you  see,  she  was  crying  over  him,  and  all  contri- 
tion for  her  own  share  of  the  business.  She  said  to  him — so  he  told 
me — '  It  was  all  my  fault,  love.  If  only  I  had  never  posted  that 
letter  I '  He  said,  '  What  letter  ? '  and  she  said, '  The  letter  with  the 
postscript.'  And  then  all  on  a  sudden  he  remembered  everything, 
from  the  beginning.  He  could  hardly  bear  to  speak  of  it.  .  .  . 
I've  told  you  all  this." 

"  Little  bits  come  out  that  you  haven't  told.    Go  on !  " 

"  He  said  he  was  afraid  he  should  go  mad,  and  had  an  idea  that 
clinging  to  his  wife  would  save  him.  '  I  was  simply,'  said  he,  '  on 
fire  with  shame  and  intense  terror  of  what  I  might  remember  next. 
I  felt  defenceless  against  what  might  be  sprung  on  me  out  of  the 
past.' " 

"  Did  he  say  anything  about  Judith  ? " 

"Neither  of  them  mentioned  her.  That  I  understand.  When 
they  spoke  of  the  motor-car,  they  seem  by  common  consent  to 
have  left  it  a  blank  who  was  in  it.  He  said  to  her :  '  But  the  man 
in  the  road — Blind  Jim — was  he  hurt  ? '  And  then  she  had  to  tell 
him  of  Jim's  death,  and  the  dear  little  thing,  and  he  was  so  horror- 
struck  that  she  was  afraid  he  would  slip  back,  and  went  for  help. 
He  had  a  very  bad  time — a  sort  of  attack  of  delirium — and  the 
doctor  had  to  give  him  morphine." 

"  Did  she  tell  him  anything  of  Judith  at  the  inquest — and  all — 
and  all  the  share  she  had  in  it,  you  know  ? " 

"  The  inquest  was  next  day." 

"  So  it  was.  Of  course !  But  was  he  ever  told  about  her  ?  Did 
you  tell  him?" 

"Why — n-no!  I  rather  shirked  talking  about  it,  that's  the 
truth." 

"  But  you  told  him  that  odd  thing    .    .     .    you  know  ?  " 

The  Rector's  voice  dropped.  "I  know  what  you  mean.  The 
child's  voice,  and  '  Pi-lot.'  Yes,  I  told  him." 

"  Was  he  impressed  ?  " 

"Ye-es — well! — perhaps  not  exactly  in  that  way.  But  he 
thought  it  very  curious,  and  wanted  me  to  send  it  to  the  Psychical 
Society." 

"Shall  you?" 

"Hml  .       ." 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  685 

"Shan't  you?" 

"  I  think  perhaps  not.  I  don't  feel  quite  like  having  it  publicly 
discussed.  I  dislike  being  cross-examined.  However,  we  might 
think  about  that."  He  said  this  with  the  manner  of  one  who 
adjourns  his  subject,  and  then,  as  though  to  confirm  the  adjourn- 
ment, went  back  on  a  previous  question — the  last  one  easily  to 
hand.  "No — she's  an  odd  character,  Judith.  You  know  I  shall 
always  say  there  was  something  magnificent  about  it." 

"  Something  detestable,"  said  his  wife.  A  side  comment,  half 
sotto  voce. 

"Well — not  lovable,  I  admit.  But  fancy  the  girl  saying  what 
she  did  in  the  face  of  all  that  crowded  room  full  of  people — in 
the  face  of  their  indignation,  mind  you! — for  no  secret  was  made 
of  it." 

"  She  ought  to  have  been  ashamed  of  herself.  What  was  it  she 
said  to  the  coroner  ? " 

"  When  he  had  stuttered  through  his  remonstrance  or  reprimand, 
or  whatever  he  meant  it  for?  Oh,  she  let  him  finish,  and  then 
said  with  the  most  absolute  tranquillity — not  a  ruffle! — ' Possibly. 
But  I  should  do  the  same  thing,  under  the  same  circumstances, 
I  have  no  doubt,  another  time.'  The  poor  coroner  hadn't  a  chance. 
It  was  just  like  a  respectable  greengrocer  trying  to  reprove  Zenobia 
or  Cleopatra." 

"  7  shouldn't  have  thought  so." 

"  I  suppose  that  means  that  I'm  a  man  ? " 

"That  was  the  idea." 

"  It  proves  what  I  say,  then — that  there  should  always  be  women 
on  juries.  However,  she  and  Rossier  had  a  narrow  escape.  They 
might  have  found  themselves  in  a  very  unpleasant  position." 

"He  wept,  didn't  he,  and  sheltered  himself  behind  made- 
moiselle ?  " 

"  Well,  he  said,  '  Qu'ai-je  pu  f aire,  moi,  centre  mademoiselle  ? 
Que  pouvez-vous  f  aire,  messieurs,  vous-memes  ? '  They  didn't 
understand  him,  of  course,  and  Felixthorpe  softened  him  down  in 
the  translating." 

"Didn't  the  dear  old  Bart,  try  to  apologize  her  away?" 

"  Yes — he  tried  to  suggest  that  she  saw  me  coming,  and  knew 
I  should  attend  to  poor  Jim.  But  when  the  jury  went  over  the 
ground,  they  saw  that  was  utterly  impossible.  .  .  Well! — she'll 
be  a  fizzing  Duchess,  as  Bob  Challis  would  say." 

A  pause  followed,  and  then  the  Rector  showed  signs  of  sleepi- 
ness after  a  tiring  day,  asking  whether  it  wasn't  getting  on  for  bed- 
time. And  he  had  a  right  to  be  tired,  because  he  had  risen  sud- 


686  IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN 

denly  from  dinner  to  go  over  to  see  old  Mrs.  Fox,  at  a  summons 
conveyed  by  Jarge,  the  bee-tender,  who  had  made  shower  the  old 
dame  was  doyin'.  She  wasn't,  and  is  still  living,  we  believe.  But 
the  Rector  had  not  got  back  till  near  ten,  when  he  was  glad  of  his 
comfortable  day's-end  chat  with  his  wife.  The  news  of  Judith's 
engagement  to  the  Duke's  heir  had  come  that  morning,  and  had 
met  him  on  his  return  from  a  visit  to  London,  which  he  had  left 
by  an  early  train,  after  spending  the  previous  evening  at  Challis's, 
where  he  stayed  the  night. 

He  paused  a  moment  over  knocking  the  ashes  from  his 
meerschaum,  and  began  saying  something.  But  he  didn't  get  as 
far  as  a  consonant.  Then  his  wife  said :  "  What  were  you  going 
to  say?" 

"  Don't  know  whether  I  ought  to  tell  you  this !  .    .    . "  said  he. 

"You  must,  now!" 

"  Well — you  must  be  very,  very  careful  not  to  repeat  it.  Challis 
didn't  bind  me  over,  certainly;  but  I  know  he  meant  confidence,  all 
the  same." 

"  I'll  be  very,  very  careful.     Go  on !  " 

"  That  old  woman — the  religious  old  horror  ..." 

"Yorick— darling!" 

"That  devout  old  lady,  then!  .  .  .  What  about  her?  Why, 
there's  some  reason  to  suppose,  apparently,  that  she  never  was  re- 
spectably married  at  all  to  the  first  wife's  father.  I  am  speaking 
of  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister's  sister — Marianne's  sister.  ..." 

"  What  a  horrid  old  hypocrite !  And  she  making  all  that  rum- 
pus about  Marianne  '  living  in  sin  ' !  " 

"Yes — but  I  wasn't  thinking  about  that.  .  .  .  Don't  you 
see?  .  .  ." 

"Don't  I  see  what?" 

"Don't  you  see  that,  if  it's  true,  the  Deceased  Wife's  Sister's 
sister  wasn't  born  in  wedlock.  So — legally,  at  any  rate — she  wasn't 
her  sister  at  all.  Not  so  much  as  a  half-sister.  And  she  wasn't  a 
Deceased  Wife,  by  hypothesis.  Q.  E.  D.  So  what  was  Kate  ? " 
Mrs.  Athelstan  Taylor  looked  perplexed — evidently  thought  Kate 
must  have  been  hard  put  to  it  to  be  there  at  all. 

"Wouldn't  Dr.  Barham?  ..."  she  began. 

The  Rector  filled  out  the  question.  "What  my  young  friend 
Bob  calls  '  make  a  great  ass  of  himself '  ? " 

"Really,  Yorick,  he  is  your  Bishop!  But  I  suppose  that's  the 
sort  of  thing  I  meant." 

"My  dear,  he  can't!" 

"Why  not?" 


IT  NEVER  CAN  HAPPEN  AGAIN  687 

"  Because  his  Creator  has  anticipated  him."  The  Rector  seemed 
happy  over  this.  His  wife  did  not  feel  quite  certain  she  under- 
stood it.  But  she  was  sure  it  was  time  to  light  her  candle,  and 
that,  broadly  speaking,  the  curtain  might  fall. 

"  It  has  been  a  strange  story,"  said  she,  in  a  sort  of  generally 
forgiving,  conclusive  way. 

"  It  has !  "  repeated  Athelstan  Taylor.  "  And  not  a  pleasant  one ! 
Anyhow,  it's  one  consolation,  that  it  never  can  happen  again." 


FINIS 


THE  AUTHOR  TO  HIS  READERS  ONLY 

Warnr,  to  my  great  surprise,  I  published  four  years  since  a  novel 
called  "Joseph  Vance"  a  statement  was  repeated  more  than  once 
in  some  journals  that  were  kind  enough  to  notice  it,  that  its  author 
was  seventy  years  of  age.  Why  this  made  me  feel  like  a  centena- 
rian I  do  not  know,  especially  as  it  was  five  years  ahead  of  the 
facts.  But  that  was  its  moral  effect.  Its  practical  one  was  to 
make  me  endeavour  to  set  it  right.  I  then  learned  for  the  first 
time  how  hopeless  is  the  pursuit  of  an  error  through  the  columns 
of  the  press,  and  soon  gave  up  the  chase. 

But  in  the  course  of  my  attempts  to  procure  the  reduction  to 
which  I  was  entitled,  I  expressed  a  hope  that  the  said  author 
would  live  to  be  seventy,  and,  further,  that  he  would  write  four 
or  five  volumes  as  long  as  his  first  in  the  interim.  To  my  thinking, 
he  has  been  as  good  (or  as  bad)  as  his  word,  for  this  present 
volume  is  Vol.  II.*  of  the  fourth  story  published  since  then,  and 
the  day  of  its  publication  will  be  the  author's  seventieth  birthday; 
or,  if  you  consider  the  day  of  his  birth  as  a  birthday,  his  seventy- 
first.  I  see  nothing  to  be  ashamed  of  in  the  way  this  author  has 
come  to  time,  and  can  (so  far)  look  with  complacency  on  the 
fact  that  we  are  each  other. 

*  The  English  edition  of  this  book  is  published  In  two  volumes. 


688     THE  AUTHOK  TO  HIS  HEADERS  ONLY 

At  the  risk  of  more  Early  Victorianism — I  have  a  heavy  score 
against  me! — may  I  use  the  rest  of  this  fly-leaf,  otherwise  blank, 
to  touch  on  another  point?  I  know  that  gossiping  with  one's 
readers  is  a  disreputable  Early  Victorian  practice,  and  far  from 
Modern,  which  everything  ought  to  be.  But  I  will  not  detain 
mine  long. 

I  wish  to  protest  against  a  misinterpretation  that  readers  of 
fiction  will  probably  continue  to  make  to  the  end  of  time,  however 
strongly  authors  may  appeal  against  it. 

I  refer  to  the  practice  of  ascribing  views — political,  religious,  or 
otherwise — expressed  by  characters  in  a  book  to  its  author.  It  is  as 
unreasonable  to  do  so  as  to  impute  every  opinion  spoken  in  a 
aream  to  the  dreamer  himself.  In  this  foregoing  book,  as  in 
others,  the  author  has  merely  put  on  record  what  the  characters 
he  was  dreaming  of  seemed  to  him  to  say. 

I  repudiate  responsibility  on  his  behalf.  Hold  a  writer  of  pure 
fiction  answerable  for  the  opinions  of  every  one  of  his  dramatis 
personse,  and  he  will  be  limited  in  the  choice  of  them  to  folk  who 
are  on  all  fours  with  everyone  else — conformists  of  a  venomous 
type — good  to  be  read  about  in  bed  by  persons  who  suffer  from 
insomnia,  but  good  for  nothing  else.  Take  the  words  of  each 
character  for  what  they  are  worth,  and  if  a  character  alleged  by 
the  tale  to  be  sane  says  something  you  don't  agree  with,  condemn 
it  as  ill-drawn,  if  you  like,  but  don't  call  the  author  to  account 
as  if  he  had  ventured  to  question  the  validity  of  your  own  per- 
suasions. Leave  him  a  free  hand,  and  he  will  verser  comme  si 
c'etait  pour  soi,  and  his  books  will  be  infinitely  more  readable,  even 
if  some  of  his  favourite  characters  utter  incorrect  opinions. 

I  may  add  that  if  the  readers  of  this  novel  want  anything^ 
altered  in  it,  it  shall  be  done  in  the  second  edition,  provided  that 
they  are  unanimous  and  that  it  will  leave  the  text  consecutive. 

W.  DE  MORGAN. 


THE  BUILDERS  OF  SPASM 

BY  CLARA  CRAWFORD  PERKINS. 

With  photogravure  frontispieces  and  62  half-tone  plates.  2 
vols.  8vo.  $5.00  net,  boxed,  carriage  extra. 

A  sumptuous  and  popular  work  similar  to  the  author's 
"French  Cathedrals  and  Chateaux."  Its  elaborate  illustrations 
and  historical  and  architectural  comment  make  this  work  an 
admirable  guide  to  intelligent  sight-seeing. 

"It  is  a  pleasure  to  take  up  a  beautiful  txwk  and  find  that  the  subject 
matter  is  quite  as  satisfactory  as  the  artistic  illustrations,  the  rich 
covers  and  the  clear  print.  .  .  .  The  author  handles  with  much 
skill  a  subject  with  which  she  is  familiar  and  one  whick  is  much  neg- 
lected by  the  average  reader." — Springfield  Republican. 

"Written  from  ample  knowledge  and  with  much  enthusiasm.  They 
describe  what  is  charming  and  interesting  in  a  manner  that  is  usually 
interesting  and  often  charming." — Chicago  Post. 

"Her  work  on  Spain  is  especially  to  be  commended.  Everyone  knows 
that  the  history  of  the  peninsula  is  a  tangle  of  racial  elements.  Few 
writers  are  skilful  enough  to  make  that  tangle  clear,  or,  if  they  have 
the  skill,  they  are  disposed  to  leave  it  in  abeyance  while  they  indulge 
in  large  generalisations.  The  very  modesty  with  which  Miss  Perkins  has 
undertaken  her  task  has  contributed  to  its  more  effective  fulfilment. 
She  does  not  try  to  tell  too  much,  but  in  brief  chapters  surveys  the 
broad  phases  of  her  subject,  glancing  at  the  Romans,  the  Vizigoths, 
Arabs  and  Moors,  and  finally  the  Christian  kings.  .  .  .  The  differ- 
ent forces  that  have  helped  to  build  up  the  Spanish  people  are  justly 
and  interestingly  characterized." — New  York  Tribune. 
***  Uniform  in  style  and  price  with  the  above  the  author's  FRENCH 
CATHEDRALS  AND  CHATEAUX. 

THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION 

By  R.  M.  Johnston,  Assistant  Professor  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. I2mo.  278  pp.,  with  special  bibliographies  following 
each  chapter,  and  index.  $1.25  net,  by  mail,  $1.37. 
The  narrative  merges  into  that  of  the  author's  "Napoleon." 
Contents :  The  Perspective  of  the  French  Revolution, 
Versailles,  Economic  Crisis,  Convocation  of  the  'States  Gen- 
eral, France  Comes  to  Versailles,  From  Versailles  to  Paris, 
The  Assembly  Demolishes  Privilege,  The  Flight  to  Varennes, 
War  Breaks  Out,  The  Massacre,  Ending  the  Monarchy,  The 
Fall  of  the  Gironde,  The  Reign  of  Terror,  Thermidor.  The 
Last  Days  of  the  Convention,  the  Directoire,  Art  and  Lit- 
erature. 

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conveyed  to  reader,  many  of  whom  will  have  been  bewildered  by  the 
anecdotal  fulness  or  the  rhetorical  romancing  of  Professor  Johnston's 
most  conspicuous  predecessors. "—Churchman. 
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MRS.  R.  5.  QARNETT'S  THE  INFAMOUS  JOHN  FRIEND 

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dramatic  from  the  melodrama." — Bookman. 

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"A  historical  novel  of  the  first  quality  and  which  is  not 
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W.    P.    EATON    AND    ELISE    M.    UNDERBILL'S    THE 
RUNAWAY  PLACE 

A  May  Idyl  of  Manhattan.  Mr.  Eaton  is  ex-dramat- 
ic critic  of  the  N.  Y.  Sun.  $1.25. 

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inevitable  fascination  for  all  whose  heart  freshness  has  not 
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suggest  the  half  humorous,  half  wistful,  wholly  tender  and 
delightful  charm  of  this  lovable  'idyl  of  Manhattan.' " — 
Chicago  Record-Herald. 

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THE  AMERICAN  NATURE  SERIES 

The  primary  object  of  this  series  is  to  answer  questions  which  the 
contemplation  of  Nature  is  constantly  arousing  in  the  mind  of  the  un- 
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FISHES,  by  DAVID  STARR  JORDAN,  President  of  the  Leland  Stanford 
Junior  University.  8vo.  789  pp.  With  18  colored  plates  and  673 
illustrations  ;  $6.00  net ;  carriage  extra. 

AMERICAN  INSECTS,  by  VERNON  L.  KELLOGG,  Professor  in  the 
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BIRDS  OF  THE  WORLD.  A  popular  account  by  FRANK  H.  KNOWL- 
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dent Biological  Society  of  Washington,  etc.,  with  Chapter  on 
Anatomy  of  Birds  by  FREDERIC  A.  LUCAS,  Chief  Curator  Brooklyn 
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colored  plates  and  236  illustrations  ;  $7.00  net ;  carriage  extra. 

NORTH  AMERICAN  TREES,  by  N.  L.  BRITTON,  Director  of  the 
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trations ;  $7.00  net  ;  carriage  extra. 

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THE  BIRD  :  ITS  FORM  AND  FUNCTION,  by  C.  W.  BEEBE,  Cura- 
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net ;  by  mail,  $3.80. 

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HELCHISEDEC 

BY  RAMSEY  BENSOX.    $1.50. 

A  deeply  felt  story  of  a  quarter  blood  Indian  in  the  North- 
west, who  felt  he  had  a  mission. 

"Rich  in  interest  alike  of  religious  psychological  and  'pure  human' 
order.  The  narrative  spell  is  keen  and  tensely  absorbing,  nor  could  the 
lightest  nature  peruse  the  unassuming  but  vital  pages  unthinking,  un- 
moved."— Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"May  it  not  be  that  this  wandering  shepherd  of  the  sheep,  solely  be- 
cause of  his  unselfish  sincerity  in  seeking  after  righteousness,  has  muck 
to  say  to  every  normally  comfortable  Christian?.  .  .  worth  a  score 
of  those  stories  in  which  an  author  sets  up  his  conception  of  a  modern 
incarnation  of  Our  Lord,  and  modestly  asks  readers  to  regard  its  supe- 
rior artistic  merit  to  the  picture  given  by  the  evangelists." — Living  Age. 

"A  theme  well  out  of  the  ordinary  ...  in  many  respects  a 
noteworthy  piece  of  fiction  .  .  .  as  a  whole  the  tale  is  picturesque, 
unusual,  and  has  the  always  gratifying  quality  of  suggestiveness. — 
New  York  Times  Review. 

A  LORD  OF  LANDS 

BY  RAMSEY  BENSOX.    $1.50. 

The  unusual  and  convincing  narrative  of  the  experiences 
of  a  man  of  good  sense,  with  wages  of  $50  a  month  and  five 
children,  following  his  determination  to  leave  the  city  and 
farm  it  in  the  Northwest. 

"A  book  of  real  adventure — an  adventure  in  living.  More  thrilling 
than  an  African  jungle  story,  and  not  lacking  in  humor  and  pathos. 
Nothing  is  more  wonderful  than  the  way  the  commonest  details  con- 
tribute to  the  homely  interest,  just  as  long  ago  we  were  fascinated  by 
the  'Swiss  Family  Robinson.'  " — The  Independent. 

"Does  for  the  humble  workingman  what  'The  Fat  of  the  Land'  did 
for  the  well-to-do.  Will  appeal  instantly  and  throughout  its  entire 
length  to  the  lover  of  the  outdoor  life." — Boston  Transcript. 

"Unique  in  literature  .  .  .  holds  many  fascinations  ... 
told  with  the  utmost  art  " — San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

OVER  AGAINST  GREEN  PEAK 

BY  ZEPHINE  HUMPHREY.     $1.25  net,  by  mail  $1.33. 
The  homely  experiences  of  a  bright  young  woman  and  her 
Aunt   Susan,   not  to  mention   the  "hired  girl,"  in   making  a 
New  England  home. 

"Verily  it  is  a  delicious  piece  of  work  and  that  last  chapter  is  a  genu- 
ine poem.  Best  of  all  is  the  charming  sincerity  of  the  book." — George 
Cory  Eggleston. 

"A  record  of  country  life  far  above  tke  average  of  its  class  in  the 
qualities  which  go  to  make  such  a  book  enjoyable.  .  .  .  The  author 
sees  the  things  that  are  worth  seeing,  and  she  ha*  a  rather  unusual  com- 
mand of  simple,  dignified  and  effective  English." — The  Nation. 

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WILSON  VANCE'S 
BIG  JOHN  BALDWIN 

The  Romance  of  a  Cromwellian  soldier,  big  of  heart 
and  body,  in  England  and  in  Virginia  ($1.50). 

"  The  love  story  is  charming  with  its  intimate  analysis  of  the  big 
fellow's  emotions  and  honest  awkwardness,  never  folly.  .  .  .  His 
wit  is  clumsy  .  .  .  but  it  is  wit,  and,  slowly  perhaps,  it  gets 
there." — Hartford  Courant. 

"  A  book  to  read  leisurely  as  one  sips  and  enjoys  good  wine." — 
Detroit  Free  Press. 


MRS.  ALICE  DUER  MILLER'S 
LESS  THAN  KIN 

The  story  of  a  likable  youth,  who  returning  to  New 
York  from  South  America,  is  welcomed  as  a  son  by  a 
family  of  strangers  ($1.25). 

"  One  of  the  best  of  the  lighter  novels  of  the  season.  .  .  .  The 
situations  are  developed  with  humor  and  cleverness,  and  the  read- 
er's interest  is  held  to  the  denouement.  Mrs.  Miller  has  a  pleasant 
gift  of  story  telling  and  a  knack  of  mixing  cleverness,  humor,  and 
sentiment  in  just  the  proper  proportions.  " — N.  T.  Times  Review. 

"  If  you  can  absent  yourself  from  this  before  it  is  ended,  your 
bump  of  curiosity  must  be  insignificant.  .  .  .  The  story  is  witty, 
terse,  and  swift.  The  characterization  is  surprisingly  sharp  and 
vivacious.  ...  In  fact  the  young  woman  in  the  case  comes  pretty 
near  being  a  very  memorable  creature.  .  .  .  Whenever  she  appears 
the  sparks  fly.  So  crisp  is  the  dialogue,  .so  unconventional  the 
action." — Nation. 

"  It  keeps  the  reader  quietly  chuckling  even  when  matters  of 
love  and  life  and  death  hang  in  the  balance  ...  all  done  so  deli- 
cately and  in  such  good  taste  that  the  reader's  sense  of  propriety 
is  never  shocked." — Putnam's  Magazine. 

"  Admirably  written  and  full  of  interest.  .  .  .  The  story  is  in- 
genious. It  has  quick  turns  and  surprises.  It  is  very  well  done." — 
New  York  8un. 

"  A  delightful  story  .  .  .  romantic  and  capital  reading." — 
Baltimore  Sun. 

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RICHARD  BURTON'S 
MASTERS  OF  THE  ENGLISH  NOVEL 

A  study  of  principles  and  personalities  by  the  Professor 
of  English  Literature,  University  of  Minnesota,  author  of 
"Literary  Likings,"  "Forces  in  Fiction/'  "  Kahab "  (a 
Poetic  Drama),  etc.  12mo,  331  pp.  and  index.  $1.25 
net. 

Contents :  Fiction  and  the  Novel, — Eighteenth  Century  Begin- 
nings :  Richardson, — Eighteenth  Century  Beginnings  :  Fielding, — 
Development*-:  Smollett,  Sterne  and  Others, — Realism:  Jane  Aus- 
ten.— Modern  Romanticism  :  Scott, — French  Influence,  Dickens, — 
Thackeray, — George  Eliot, — Trollope  and  Others, — Hardy  and 
Meredith, — Stevenson, — The  American  Contribution, — Index. 

RICHARD  BURTON'S 
RAHAB,  A  DRAMA  OF  THE  FALL  OF  JERICHO 

119  pp.,  12mo.  01.25  net;  by  mail,  $1.33.  With  cast  of 
characters  for  the  first  performance  and  pictures  of  the 
scenes. 

"  A  poetic  drama  of  high  quality.  Plenty  of  dramatic  action." 
— A'eu-  York  Times  Review. 

WILLIAM  MORTON  PAYNE'S 

THE  GREATER  ENGLISH  POETS  OF  THE  NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 

383  pp.,  large  12mo.  $2.00  net;  by  mail,  $2.15.  Studies 
of  Keats,  Shelley,  Byron,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  Landor, 
Browning,  Tennyson,  Arnold,  Rossetti,  Morris,  and  Swin- 
burne. Their  outlook  upon  life  rather  than  their  strictly 
literary  achievement  is  kept  mainly  in  view. 

"  The  sound  and  mellow  fruits  of  his  long  career  as  a  critic.  .  .  . 
There  is  not  a  rash,  trivial,  or  dull  line  in  the  whole  book.  .  .  . 
Its  charming  sanity  has  seduced  me  into  reading  it  to  the  end,  and 
anyone  who  does  the  same  will  feel  that  he  has  had  an  inspiring 
taste  of  everything  that  is  finest  in  nineteenth-century  poetry. 
Ought  to  be  read  and  reread  by  every  student  of  literature,  and 
most  of  all  by  those  who  have  neglected  English  poetry,  for  here 
«ne  finds  its  essence  in  brief  compass." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

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THE  LADY  OF  THE  DYNAMOS 

By  ADELE  MARIE  SHAW  and  CARMELITA  BECKWITH 

310  pp.     I2mo.     $1.50. 

A  very  appealing  love  story  dominates  this  tale  of  the  heroic 
struggle  of  a  young  American  electrical  engineer  and  an  English 
girl,  against  treachery,  superstition  and  open  opposition,  to  harness 
a  great  water  power  and  reclaim  a  wilderness  in  Ceylon.  There  is 
plenty  of  humor  as  well  as  of  peril  and  suspense,  and  it  works  up  to 
a  climax,  the  most  exciting  chapter  being  the  last.  The  characters, 
principally  American  and  English,  are  so  well  denned  that  the  effect 
is  almost  that  of  a  play  acted  before  the  reader's  eyes. 

"Striking  and  fascinating  .  .  a  charming  young  woman  .  .  the 
devil  dances  and  the  outbreaks  of  the  natives  are  described  with  vivid 
detail  .  .  .  stands  out  as  a  bit  of  real  life." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  A  good  story     ...     a  fine  likeable  American  man  and  a 

charming    English    girl     .     .     .     personages    standing   out   clearly 

the  stirring  action  and  picturesque  setting  will  help  many 

a  pleased  reader  to  compass  a  verdict  of  praise." — Chicago  Record 

Herald. 

"  A  vivid  romance,  combining  marked  virility  with  the  most 
delicate  play  of  fancy  and  of  sentiment  .  .  .  holds  the  interest 
from  beginning  to  end.  The  surprise  of  the  narrative  is  the  con- 
summate ease  witli  which  two  women  writers  handle  the  details  of 
the  great  electrical  power  plant  and  mammoth  business  enterprise." 
— San  Francisco  Chronicle. 

THE  PILGRIM'S  MARCH 

By  H.  H.  BASHFORD 

320  pp.  iamo.     Third  Printing,  $1.50. 

A  happily  written  English  story  with  a  theme  of  wide  appeal.  A 
likable  youth  with  artistic  tendencies  is  converted,  for  a  time  at  least, 
to  the  ways,  and  works,  arid  daughter  of  a  puritan  family.  The  sit- 
uation is  worked  out  with  humor  and  in  an  atmosphere  of  good 
breeding. 

"Extremely  clever  and  charming." — Prof.  Wm.Lyon  Phelps  of  Yale. 

"A  sureness  of  touch,  a  sympathetic  understanding  that  deserve 
high  piaise."  —  The  Bookman. 

"  Really  charming.  They're  all  very  real,  these  good  people — 
altogether  too  nice  ami  wholesomely  lovable  to  shut  away  with  tke 
memory  of  their  story's  single  reading." — Chicago  Record-Herald. 

"  Those  critics  who  have  asserted  that  all  possible  plots  have  been 
used  will  be  compelled  to  retreat.  A  remarkable  first  novel." — The 
Lh'ing  Age,  Boston. 

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"  The  most  complete  and  authoritative  .  .  .  pre-eminently  the 
man  to  write  the  book  .  .  .  full  of  the  spirit  of  discerning 
criticism.  .  .  .  Delightfully  engaging  manner,  with  humor, 
allusiveness  and  an  abundance  of  the  personal  note." — Richard  Aid- 
rich  in  New  York  Times  Review.  (Complete  notice  on  application. ) 

CHAPTERS  OF  OPERA 

Being  historical  and  critical  observations  and  records  concerning 
the  Lyric  Drama  in  New  York  from  its  earliest  days  down  to  the 
present  time. 

By  HENRY  EDWARD  KREHBIEL 

Musical  critic  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  Author  of  "Music  and 
Manners  in  the  Classical  Period,"  "Studies  in  the  Wagnerian 
Drama,"  t;  How  to  Listen  to  Music."  etc.  With  over  70  portraits 
and  pictures  of  Opera  Houses.  Second  edition,  revised. 

$3.50  net  ;  by  mail  $3.72.     Illustrated  circular  on  application. 

This  is  perhaps  Mr.  Krehbiel's  most  important  book.  The 
first  seven  chapters  deal  with  the  earliest  operatic  performances  in 
New  York.  Then  follows  a  brilliant  account  of  the  first  quarter- 
century  of  the  Metropolitan,  1883-1908.  He  tells  how  Abbey's  first 
disastrous  Italian  season  was  followed  by  seven  seasons  of  German 
Opera  under  Leopold  Damrosch  and  Stanton,  how  this  was  tem- 
porarily eclipsed  by  French  and  Italian,  and  then  returned  to  dwell 
with  them  in  harmony,  thanks  to  Walter  Damrosch's  brilliant  crusade, 
— also  of  the  burning  of  the  opera  house,  the  vicissitudes  of  the 
American  Opera  Company,  the  coming  and  passing  of  Grau  and 
Conried,  and  finally  the  opening  of  Oscar  Hammerstein's  Manhattan 
Opera  House  and  the  first  two  seasons  therein,  1906-08. 

"  Presented  not  only  in  a  readable  manner  but  without  bias  .  .  .  ex- 
tremely interesting  and  valuable."— Nation. 

"The  illustrations  are  a  true  embellishment  .  .  .  Mr.  Krehbiel's  style 
was  never  more  charmine.  It  is  a  delight." — Pkilip  Hale  in  Boston  Herald. 

"  A  readable  and  valuable  book,  which  no  one  who. is  interested  in  the 
subject  can  afford  to  leave  out  of  his  library  .  .  .  written  in  entertaining 
manner,  and  it  is  comprehensive." — Putnam. 

"  Invaluable  for  purpose  of  reference  .  .  .  rich  in  critical  passages  .  .  . 
all  the  great  singers  of  the  world  have  been  heard  here.  Most  of  the  ereat 
conductors  have  come  to  our  shores.  .  .  .  Memories  of  them  which  serve 
to  humanize,  as  it  were,  his  analyses  of  their  work.1'— New  York  Tribune. 

,*»If  the  reader  will  send  his  name  and  address,  the  publisher  will  send,  front 
time  to  time,  information  regarding  their  new  books. 

HENRY     HOLT    AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW    YORK 


"  The  most  important  biographic  contribution  to  musical 
literature  since  the  beginning  of  the  century,  with  the  exception 
of  Wagners  Letters  to  Frau  Wesendonck. ' ' 

— H.  T.  FINCK,  IN  THE  NEW  YORK  EVENING  POST. 

(Circular  with  complete  review  and  sample  pagea  on  application.) 

Personal     Recollections    of    Wagner 

By  ANGELO  NEUMANN 

Translated  from  the  fourth  German  edition  by  EDITH  LIVERMOHE. 
Large  l-2mo.  318  pp.,  with  portraits  and  one  of  Wagner's 
letters  in  facsimile.  $-2.50  net;  by  mail  $2.65. 

Probably  no  man  ever  did  more  to  make  Wagner's  music 
dramas  known  than  Angelo  Neumann,  who,  with  his  famous 
"  Wagner  Travelling  Theatre,"  carrying  his  artists,  orchestra, 
scenery  and  elaborate  mechanical  devices,  toured  Germany,  Hol- 
land, Belgium,  Italy,  Austria  and  Russia,  and  with  another 
organization  gave  "The  Ring"  in  London.  But  the  account  of 
this  tour,  interesting  as  it  is,  is  not  the  main  feature  of  his 
book,  which  abounds  in  intimate  glimpses  of  Wagner  at  rehear- 
sals, at  Wahnfried  and  elsewhere,  and  tells  much  of  the  great 
conductor,  Anton  Seidl,  so  beloved  by  Americans.  Among  other 
striking  figures  are  Nikisch  and  Muck,  both  conductors  of  the 
Boston  Symphony  orchestra,  Mottl,  the  Vogls,  Von  Bulow, 
Materna,  Marianna  Brandt,  Klafsky,  and  Reicher-Kindermann. 

It  is  doubtful  if  any  book  gives  a  more  vivid  and  truthful 
picture  of  life  and  *'  politics "  behind  the  scenes  of  various 
opera  houses.  Many  of  the  episodes,  such  as  those  of  a  bearded 
Brynhild,  the  comedy  writer  and  the  horn  player  and  the  prince 
and  the  Rhinedaughter  are  decidedly  humorous. 

The  earlier  portions  of  the  book  tell  of  the  Leipsic  negotia- 
tions and  performances,  the  great  struggle  with  Von  Hiilsen,  the 
royal  intendant  at  Berlin,  Bayreuth  and  "  Parsifal."  Many  of 
Wagner's  letters  appear  here  for  the  first  time. 

ILLUSTRATIONS.— RICHARD  WAGNER  :  Bust  by  Anton  zur 
Strassen  in  the  foyer  of  the  Leipsic  Stadttheater. — ANGELO  NEU- 
MANN :  From  a  picture  in  the  Kiinstlerzimmer  of  the  Leipsic 
Stadttheater.— ANTOW  SEIDL  :  Bas-relief  by  Winifred  Holt  of 
New  York.  Replica  commissioned  by  Herr  Direktor  Neumann. 
— HEDWIG  REICHER-KINDERMANN — Facsimile  of  letter  from  Wag- 
ner to  Neumann,  received  after  the  news  of  Wagner's  death. 

If  the  reader  will  send  hi*  name  and  address  the  publishers  will  send 
information  about  their  new  books  as  issued. 

HENRY      HOLT      AND       COMPANY 

M   WEST    33ED    STREET  NEW  YORK 


A  POLITICAL  HISTORY  OF  THE  STATE 

OF  NEW  YORK  (1774-1882) 
De  Alva  Stanwood  Alexander,  A.M. 

Volt.  I.  All.  (1774-1861).  840  pp., 8vo.fS.OO  net  (carriage  40c.  extra) 
VoL  I/I.  (1861-1882).     S61pp.,  8vo.     $2.50  net  (carriage  28c.   extra) 

A  history  of  the  movements  of  political  parties  in  New  York 
State  from  1774  to  1882,  and  embraces  a  series  of  brilliant  char- 
acter studies  of  the  leaders,  most  of  them  of  national  importance, 
who,  from  the  days  of  George  Clinton,  have  drawn  the  attention  of 
the  nation  to  New  York.  The  astute  methods  and  sources  of  power 
by  which  George  Clinton,  Hamilton,  Burr,  DeWitt  Clinton,  Van 
Buren,  Seymour  and  Thurlow  Weed  each  successively  controlled  the 
political  destiny  of  the  State  are  clearly  and  picturesquely  set  forth. 
The  third  volume  narrates,  fully  and  entertainingly,  the  futile 
efforts  of  Weed  and  Dean  Richmond  to  reorganize  existing  parties, 
the  rise  and  fall  of  the  Tweed  Ring,  Conkling's  punishment  of 
Greeley  and  defeat  of  Fenton,  Tilden's  defiance  of  Tammany  and 
struggle  with  Kelly,  and  the  overthrow  of  the  Stalwart  regime  by 
the  crushing  victory  of  Grover  Cleveland.  Throughout  It  is  char- 
acterized, too,  with  a  fairness  which  must  appeal  to  the  strongest 
partisan.  (Circular  with  sample  pages  on  application.) 

"  It  meets  a  want  widely  felt  and  repeatedly  expressed  during 
the  past  hundred  years.  ...  It  would  be  impossible  in  a  dozen 
notices  to  render  any  sort  of  justice  to  the  extensive  scope  of  this 
work  and  to  the  multiplicity  of  its  interesting  details." — From  two 
leading  articles,  aggregating  over  ten  columns,  in  the  New  York 
Sun. 

"  Will  undoubtedly  take  its  place  as  the  authoritative  work  upon 
the  subject." — Boston  Transcript. 

"  The  most  entertaining  story  of  state  politics  in  American 
history." — Review  of  Reviews. 

"  Will  be  read  with  great  interest  and  profit  outside  the  Empire 
State."— Cleveland  Plain  Dealer. 

JOHN  DAVIS'  TRAVELS  OF  FOUR  YEARS  AND  A  HALF 
IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA  (1798-1802) 

Dedicated  by  permission  to  Thomas  Jefferson,  Esq.  First  Pub- 
lished, London,  1803.  With  Introduction  and  Notes  by  Alfred  J. 
Morrison.  8vo,  429  pps.  $2.50  net.  by  mail  $2.65. 

The  only  book  of  the  period  written  by  a  traveller  in  the  United 
States  the  object  of  which  is  not  so  much  statistical  narrative  as 
narrative  purely.  It  is  a  story  of  wanderings  from  New  York  to 
South  Carolina,  and  as  such  affords  a  most  interesting  picture  of 
the  greater  part  of  the  United  States  at  the  beginning  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  author  was  a  novelist  and  shows  It  in  his 
book.  A  necessary  book  for  even  an  exclusive  collection  of  Amer- 
icana. Measured  by  any  standard  an  unusual  book  of  travel. 

Trevelyan  in  his  "  American  Revolution  "  says  of  this  book : 
"  Among  accounts  of  such  voyages,  none  are  more  life-like ;  an  ex- 
quisitely absurd  book,  which  the  world,  to  the  diminution  of  it« 
gaiety,  has  forgotten." 

If  the  reader  will  send  his  name  and  address,  the  publishers  will 
Bend,  from  time  to  time,  information  regarding  their  new  books. 

HENRY    HOLT    AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  HEW   YORK 


BOOKS  THAT  CHEER 

By   CHARLES  BATTELL   LOOMIS 

Uniform  I2mo.     Each,  $1.25. 

A  HOLIDAY  TOUCH;  and  Other  Tales  of  Un- 
daunted Americans. 

Illustrated  by  Thomas  Fogarty,  F.  R.  Gruger,  Peter  Newell, 
Charles  B.  Loomis,  "  Hy."  Mayer,  H.  G.  Williamson,  and  John 
Wolcott  Adams. 

Perhaps  Mr.  Loomis's  greatest  charm  is  his  old  combination  of 
American  buoyancy  with  an  unobtrusive  pathos.  The  "  hard-up  " 
one  who  does  not  whine  or  ask  for  help,  but  smiles  and  wins  out, 
dominates  these  pages,  which  fairly  sparkle  with  Yankee  ingenuity 
and  pluck.  There  are  also  some  delightful  burlesques. 

"Mr.  Loomis  at  his  clever  best.  He  succeeds  in  embodying  the  shrewd- 
ness and  ingenuity  of  our  national  spirit  in  terms  of  great  human  kindliness — 
a  combination  of  keen  insight  and  deep  sympathy  which  always  makes  for  the 
best  kind  of  humor." — Chicago  Evening  Post. 

POE'S  RAVEN  IN  AN  ELEVATOR 
Being  a  later  edition  of  "Moore  Cheerful  Americans."    Illustrated 

by  Mrs.  Shinn  and  others. 

Eighteen   humorous   tales    in    the    vein   of  the    author's   popular 

"Cheerful   Americans."        To   these   is   appended    a    delightfully 

satirical  paper  on  "How  to  Write  a  Novel  for  the  Masses." 

"Really  funny.    Vou  have  to  laugh— laugh  suddenly  and  unexpectedly." — 

N.  Y.  Times  Review. 

CHEERFUL  AMERICANS 

Illustrated  by  Mmes.  Shinn,  Cory,  and  others. 

Seventeen  humorous  tales,  including  three  quaint  automobile 
stories,  the  "Americans  Abroad  "  series,  "The  Man  of  Putty,"  etc. 

"The  mere  name  and  the  very  cover  are  full  of  hope.  .  .  .  This  small 
volume  is  a  safe  one  to  lend  to  a  gambler,  an  invalid,  a  hypochondriac,  or  aa 
old  lady  ;  more  than  safe  for  the  normal  man." — Nation. 


DAVY  JONES'  YARNS  and  other  Salted  Songs 
By  THOMAS  R.  YBARRA.     With   over  30  illustrations   by   HENRY 
MAYER  of  the  New  York  Times.     $1.25  net 

A  wild  book  in  which  the  imagination  and  humor  of  both  versifier 
and  artist  are  restrained  by  nothing  but  propriety.  Davy  Jones  has 
mad  adventures  with  the  Swiss  Admiral,  Cannibals,  the  Czar,  Mince 
Pirates,  the  Revolution  Bug,  etc. 

"A  volume  of  delightfully  whimsical  humor  .  .  .  rollicking  rhyme  .  .  . 
the  pictures  are  as  merrily  grotesque  as  the  verses." — Chicago  Record'HeraUi. 

HENRY     HOLT    AND    COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW   YORK 


BIOLOGY  AND  ITS  MAKERS  By  W.  A.  Locy. 

By  the  Professor  of  Biology  in  Northwestern  University. 
123  illustrations.  8vo.  $2.75  net,  by  mail  $2.88. 

"  Entertainingly  written,  and,  better  than  any  other  existing  single 
work  in  any  language,  gives  the  layman  a  clear  idea  of  the  scope  and 
development  of  the  broad  science  of  biology."—  The  Dial 

CANADIAN  TYPES  OF  THE  OLD  REGIME   By  C.  W.  Colby. 

By  the  Professor  of  History  in  McGill  University.  18  illus- 
trations, 8vo.«  $2.75  net,  by  mail  $2. 90. 

"  A  light  and  graceful  style.  Not  only  interesting  reading,  but  gives 
as  clear  a  notion  of  what  the  old  regime  was  at  its  best  as  may  be  found 
anywhere  in  a  single  volume."—  Literary  Digest. 

THE  BUILDERS  OF  UNITED  ITALY         By  R.  S.  Holland. 

With  8  portraits.  Large  i2mo.  $2.00  net,  by  mail  $2.13. 
Historical  biographies  of  Alfieri,  Manzoni,  Gioberti,  Manin, 
Mazzini,  Cavour,  Garibaldi,  and  Victor  Emmanuel. 

"  Popular  but  not  flimsy."—  The  Nation. 


THE  ITALIANS  OF  TO-DAY  By  Rene  Bazin. 

By  the  author  of  "The  Nun,"  etc.  Translated  by  Wm. 
Marchant.  $1.25  net,  by  mail  $1.35. 

"A  most  readable  book.  He  touches  upon  everything." — Boston 
Transcript. 

DARWINISM  TO-DAY  By  V.  L.  Kellogg. 

By  the  author  of  "  American  Insects,"  etc.  8vo.  $2.00  net, 
by  mail  $2.12. 

"  Can  write  in  English  as  brightly  and  as  clearly  as  the  oldtime  French- 
men. .  .  .  In  his  text  he  explains  the  controversy  so  that  the  plain 
man  may  understand  it,  while  in  the  notes  he  adduces  the  evidence  that 
the  specialist  requires.  ...  A  brilliant  book  that  deserves  general 
attention."— New  York  Sun. 

.*.    If  the  reader  will  send  his  name  and  address,  the  publishers  will 
send,  from  time  to  time,  information  regarding  their  new  books. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND      COMPANY 

34  WEST  33d  STREET  NEW  YORK 


R.  M.  JOHNSTON'S  LEADING  AMERICAN  SOLDIERS 

Biographies  of  Washington,  Greene,  Taylor,  Scott,  Andrew 
Jackson,  Grant,  Sherman,  Sheridan,  McClelian,  Meade,  Lee, 
"Stonewall"  Jackson,  Joseph  E.  Johnson.  With  portrait*. 
1  vol.  $1.75  net ;  by  mail  $1.88. 

The  first  of  a  new  series  of  biographies  of  leading  Americana. 

"Performs  a  real  service  in  preserving  the  essentials."— Btvieto  of 
Rtvitws. 

"  Very  interesting.  .  .  .  Much  sound  originality  of  treatment,  and  tha 
•tyle  is  clear."—  Springfield  Republican, 

ELIZA  R.  SCIDMORE'S  AS  THE  HAGUE  ORDAINS 

Journal  of  a  Russian  Prisoner's  Wife  in  Japan.  Illustrated 
from  photographs.  $1.50  net,  by  mail  $1.69. 

"  Holds  a  tremendous  human  interest.  .  .  .  Author  writes  with  wik 
and  a  delightfully  feminine  abandon."— Outlook. 

"This  surprisingly  outspoken  volume  .  .  .  could  have  been  written 
only  by  an  extraordinarily  able  woman  who  knew  the  inside  of  Russian 
politics  and  also  had  actual  experience  in  Japanese  war  hospitals." — Chicago 
Record-Herald. 

W.  F.  JOHNSON'S  FOUR  CENTURIES  OF  THE  PANAMA 
CANAL 

With  16  illustrations  and  6  colored  maps.     $3.00  net ;   by  mail, 
$3.27. 

"  The  most  thorough  and  comprehensive  book  on  the  Panama  Canal."— 
Nation. 

JOHN  L.  GIVENS'   MAKING  A  NEWSPAPER 

The  author  was  recently  with  the  New  York  Evening  Sun. 
$1.50  net ;  by  mail  $1.62. 

Some  seventy-five  leading  newspapers  praise  this  book  as  the 
best  detailed  account  of  the  business,  editorial,  reportorial  and 
manufacturing  organization  of  a  metropolitan  journal.  It  should 
be  invaluable  to  those  entering  upon  newspaper  work  and  a 
revelation  to  the  general  reader. 

THE  OPEN  ROAD  THE  FRIENDLY  TOWN 

Compiled  by  E.  V.  Lucas.  Full  gilt,  illustrated  cover  linings, 
each  (cloth)  $1.50  ;  (leather)  $2.50. 

Pretty  anthologies  of  prose  and  verse  from  British  and 
American  authors,  respectively  for  wayfarers  and  the  urbane. 

*    If  the  reader  will  send  his  name  and  address  the  publishers  will  send, 
from  time  to  time,  information  regarding  their  new  books. 

HENRY     HOLT    AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERJ  (l-'07)  WKW  TOBK 


MRS.  E.  L.  VOYNICH'S  THE  GADFLY 

AD  intense  romance  of  the  Italian  rising  against  the  Austrian  . 
early  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Twenty-first  printing.  $1.25. 

"  One  of  the  most  powerful  novels  of  the  decade."— New  York  Tribun*. 

ANTHONY   HOPE'S  THE  PRISONER  OF  ZENDA 

Being  the  history  of  three  months  in  the  life  of  an  English 
gentleman.  Illustrated  by  C.  D.  Gibson.  Fifty-first  printing. 
$1.50. 

ANTHONY  HOPE'S  RUPERT  OF  HENTZAU 

A  sequel  to  "The  Prisoner  of  Zenda."  Illustrated  by  C.  D. 
Gibson.  Twenty-first  printing.  $1.50. 

These  stirring  romances  established  a  new  vogue  in  fiction  and 
are  among  the  most  widely-read  novels.  Each  has  been  success- 
fully dramatized. 

C.  N.  AND  A.   M.  WILLIAMSON'S  THE    LIGHTNING 
CONDUCTOR 

New  illustrated  edition.     Twenty-first  printing.     $1.50. 

A  humorous  love  story  of  a  beautiful  American  and  a  gallant 
Englishman  who  stoops  to  conquer.  Two  almost  human  auto- 
mobiles play  prominent  parts.  There  are  picturesque  scenes  in 
Provence,  Spain  and  Italy. 

"  Altogether  the  best  automobile  story  of  which  we  have  knowledge,  and 
might  serve  almost  as  a  guide-book  for  highway  travel  from  Paris  to  Sicily." 
— Atlantic  Monthly. 

C.  N.  AND   A.   M.   WILLIAMSON'S  THE  PRINCESS 
PASSES 

Illustrated  by  Edward  Penfield.     Eighth  printing.     $1.50. 

"The  authors  have  duplicated  their  success  with  'The  Lightning  Con- 
ductor.' .  .  .  Unusually  absorbing."— Boston  Transcript. 

D.  D.  WELLS'  HER  LADYSHIP'S  ELEPHANT 

This  humorous  Anglo-American  tale  made  an  instantaneous 
hit.  Eighteenth  printing.  $1.25. 

"  He  is  probably  funny  because  he  cannot  help  it.  .  .  .  Must  consent 
to  be  regarded  as  a  benefactor  of  his  kind  without  responsibility."— The 
Nation. 

*    If  the  reader  will  send  his  name  and  address,  the  publishers  will  aend. 
from  time  to  time,  information  regarding  their  new  books. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  (*-'07)  »«W  YORK 


McPherson's  Railroad  Freight  Rates 

In  Their  Relation  to  the  Industry  and  Commerce  of  the  United 
States. 

By  LOGAN  G.  MCPHERSON,  author  of  "The  Working  of  the  Rail- 
roads." 8vo.  With  maps,  tables,  and  a  full  index.  $2.25  net,  by 
mail.  $2.42. 

This  study  of  the  freight  rate  structure  is  so  comprehensive  and 
thorough  as  not  only  to  be  exceedingly  valuable  to  anyone  having  to 
do  with  railroad  freight  traffic  either  as  a  railroad  official  or  as  a 
shipper,  but  it  is  also  a  most  fascinating  exposition  for  the  general 
reader  of  a  subject  which  has  not  hitherto  received  a  popularly  in- 
telligible presentation.  It  offers  to  younger  men  the  only  means  of 
knowing  how  the  present  freight  rate  system  has  been  evolved 

"An  exceed ingly  important  book.  .  .  .  Not  only  the  best  existing  account, 
but  it  is  easily  the  best  book  on  American  railway  traffic.  .  .  .  We  have 
little  hesitation  in  expressing  the  opinion  that  it  -will  stand  as  the  standard 
reference  work  for  a  good  many  years,  and  from  the  standpoint  of  public 
policy  we  are  exceedingly  glad  that  the  book  has  been  written.  The  country 
would  be  better  governed  if  the  legislator,  state  and  national,  had  to  pass  an 
examination  upon  it  before  taking  nis  oath  of  office." — Railroad  Age  Gazette. 

"A  book  the  nation  has  needed." — New  York  Suu. 

McPherson's  The  Working  of  the  Railroads 

By  LOGAN  G.  MCPHERSON,  Lecturer  on  Transportation  at  Johns 
Hopkins.  I2mo.  #1.50  net;  By  mail  $1.63. 

"  Simply  and  lucidly  tells  what  a  railroad  company  is,  what  it  does,  and 
how  it  does  it.  Cannot  fail  to  be  of  use  to  the  voter.  Of  exceeding  value  to 
the  young  and  ambitious  in  railroad  service. —  The  Travelers'  Official  Rail- 
way Guide. 

"  The  most  important  contribution  to  its  branch  of  the  subject  that  has 
yet  been  made.'' —  The  Dial. 

"The  author's  connection  with  practical  service  gives  this  a  value  which  no 
other  book  quite  equals.  Up-to-date,  informing,  ...  an  excellent  piece 
of  work." — Wall  Street  Journal. 

Carter's  When  Railroads  Were  New 

By  CHARLES  FREDERICK  CARTER,  with  an  Introductory  Note  by 
Logan  G.  McPherson.  16  full-page  illustrations,  8vo,  312  pp.  $2.00 
net,  by  mail  $2. 16. 

A  history  of  the  every-day  difficulties,  discouragements  and 
triumphsof  the  pioneers  who  built  and  ran  the  early  railroads.  With 
many  anecdotes  that  add  to  the  abundant  human  interest. 

"Full  of  interest.  Besides  the  general  chapter  on  the  beginnings,  it  gives 
the  early  history  of  the  Erie,  the  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio, 
of  the  Vanderbuilt  lines,  the  first  Pacific  railroad,  and  of  the  Canadian 
Pacific.  Very  readable.— N.  Y.  Suu. 

"Invaluable.  It  gathers  the  floating  fragments  of  railroad  history,  weaving 
a  human  interest  into  a  coherent  record  of  every  day  trials  and  triumphs.  A 
human  and  personal  document,  not  a  dry  historical  treatise  or  a  batch  of 
anecdotes." — Baltimore  Sun, 

"No  book  of  adventure  contains  more  exciting  episodes  or  more  varied^  in- 
terest. Every  page  is  of  live  interest.  So  replete  with  curious  information, 
thoroughly  entertainine  and  instructive." — Brooklyn  £ag/f. 

HENRY     HOLT     AND     COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS  NEW   YORK 


DATE  DUE 


PRINTED  IN  U.S.A. 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


Jll  Mill  Hill  Mill  Hill  Hill  Illl 

A     000  822  549     2 


